


The Unexplained

by mooninherhair



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-14 14:42:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13009983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooninherhair/pseuds/mooninherhair
Summary: Harry has just moved to Los Angeles to work for HiveNews Media, and his dark mood from homesickness and his creepy new apartment inspire a brilliant idea for a new paranormal video series. Unfortunately, he finds himself partnered with the biggest ghost skeptic of them all. Will they be able to get along well enough to get the series off the ground? And what's going on with the other unexplained events that are beginning to surround their lives?This story is inspired by the series Buzzfeed Unsolved, which pairs a believer and a skeptic to investigate hauntings and unsolved true crimes. It's really awesome, so check it out if you haven't yet. If you're a Buzzfeed fan, you might find some other familiar "faces" floating around this story, too. Thanks for reading!





	1. Episode 1

_HOLLYWOOD_. Squinting through the streaming sunlight, Louis Tomlinson took in the iconic letters of the Hollywood sign through the passenger side window – the same place he sat every morning, the same sun that shined every day. No matter what disappointments and failures he faced at work throughout the day, he hadn't yet ceased to be overtaken by an overwhelming sense of awe and fresh determination each day when passing under the sign on his commute north on the 101. It wasn't the best view, the letters small and mostly obstructed from the freeway, but right around Gower there was always a chance for a brief glimpse, and without fail he would make sure he put down his thermos of coffee long enough to catch it.

 

Today he didn't have much of a chance to reflect on this morning ritual before an enormous yawn overtook him and he had to shut his eyes.

 

“You're telling me, man,” concurred the driver, barely intelligible through his own yawn. “Give me some of that, would you?” Without waiting for permission, he reached over, pried the thermos out of Louis' hand, and took a long gulp. “Fuck! I burned my tongue,” he moaned, elbowing Louis in the arm and catching his breath before going in for another long pull at the coffee.

 

“All right, all right, that's enough,” Louis growled, snatching it back and splashing a few drips down his friend's chin in the process. “Anyway, it's your fault we were out so late last night; who are you to be stealing my caffeine?” He pouted noncomittally as he screwed the lid back on.

 

“My fault?” the driver muttered, beeping the horn lazily at the suddenly stalled flow of traffic. He took the opportunity to shift the car into park and stretch dramatically, burrowing his back deep into the seat and flailing his arms up, fists digging into the ceiling. Brake lights dimmed in front of them and he got the car rolling again. “I might be willing to accept responsibility for keeping you out until my gig was over, but staying up until sunrise to write another pointless review about it that Cheryl is inevitably going to ignore is all on you, man.”

 

“Hey!” Louis slapped his friend on the thigh playfully, though in his stomach that dark pit started to open up, as it did every day, another morning ritual. “You know I'm trying to help you guys out, too,not just myself.”

 

“I know, bro. I know.” Zayn Malik, lead singer of the sort-of-up-and-coming band The GraFitiZ, and Louis' best friend and coworker at HiveNews Internet Media Ltd., shifted into a higher gear and eased them faster toward Studio City and company headquarters.

 

The main room of the HiveNews building was a huge, sun-drenched open-plan office, rows of minimalist desks, each outfitted with all the latest technology, cutting neatly across the space that buzzed gently with activity. Louis and Zayn worked their way to the back wall where they sat right next to each other in a line of other video editors and graphic arts staff.

 

Though Louis had spent his entire almost-two-years at the Hive presenting Cheryl, the editor, with regular reviews of bands in the local music scene, she had yet to think highly enough of any of them to publish, music critiques being “not quite our thing,” as she always put it, before sending him back to his desk to splice together more video clips of his various coworkers testing out lipstick, eating at boring restaurants, or jumping into bathtubs of jello.

 

Getting hired at the Hive and moving from his small, working-class town in northern England to not only another country but to the actual epicenter of all things music production-related had been an actual dream-come-true. Meeting Zayn and his band had been the icing on the cake and seemed like fate itself reaching out to welcome him to Lala Land.

 

But the months and then the years had passed, one sunny day after the next, with the GraFitiZ getting no recognition and Louis' attempts to promote them and make a name for himself in the music world going continuously nowhere. The most success either of them had found had been appearing in a handful of seconds-long clips of them tasting strange foods in one of the Hive's most popular video series'. His contorted expression as he put a piece of the world's spiciest pepper on his tongue was not a lot, he thought, to write home to England about.

 

He glanced over at Zayn, who was already deep into a Photoshop project on his computer. He loved making art as much as he loved making music, and as such hadn't become quite so disillusioned with his job as Louis had.

 

“I guess I'll head in and talk to Cheryl. You think?”

 

Zayn didn't glance away from his monitor but stuck an arm with a big thumbs up over toward Louis. “Go get 'em, bro. You got this.”

 

Louis grabbed Zayn's thumb and stuffed it back down into his fist. “Come on. Really. Should I even bother?”

 

Suddenly Zayn's head snapped around to face Louis. For a second he thought his friend might actually engage him genuinely on this tired topic. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw Eugene approaching, and sighed. The Hive's biggest star, inasmuch as Internet video personas could actually be stars, was arriving for the day, and watching him walk past was probably Zayn's most important morning ritual.

 

“Hey, Eugene!” he called meekly over Louis' head, his voice barely projecting down the aisle.

 

But somehow it carried far enough. Without turning his perfectly-coiffed head of slick black hair even a millimeter, he glanced over at Zayn, gave him a barely perceptible wink, and continued ahead, smooth stride unbroken. Zayn's cheeks flushed scarlet under his faraway eyes.

 

“Pathetic,” muttered Louis, sliding his review off his desk and marching after Eugene into the dim labyrinth of hallways at the back of the building where the editors and other non-peons had their offices with actual walls. At the end of the first hall, when Eugene turned to the left, Louis rolled his eyes at his back and whipped around the corner to the right, immediately slamming full-body into another person, the pages of his review fluttering to the ground around them.

 

“Oops,” came the low, smooth voice of the tall stranger. Louis stepped back to see what he was dealing with. A new face at the Hive, as much as he would never admit it, for Louis meant just another obstacle to him ever getting noticed for what he wanted to be noticed for. And this face, a clean-shaven young man with a jawline that could cut diamonds and dimples that sparkled like them, seemed more likely than most to be noticed.

 

“Hi,” Louis nodded curtly, giving one last pass of his eyes to the newcomer's tousled brown locks and long, skinny-jeans-clad legs, before bending down to collect his papers. But he wasn't fast enough. In the same instant, the new kid bent down too, and their heads collided painfully.

 

A deep chuckle came from the new guy's throat as his large, perfectly-proportioned hands beat Louis to neatly scoop up the papers. They both straightened up and rubbed their heads awkwardly with one hand while exchanging the papers with the other.

 

“You must be new here,” Louis sighed, not making the slightest effort to hide his frustration.

 

The new guy's face filled with an embarrassingly eager-to-please grin as he stuck his now-empty hand back out. “Yup. I'm Harry Styles, new content creator.”

 

Louis' frustration catapulted into new territory of annoyance. Hearing the new guy speak more than one word had revealed the full spectrum of his vowel shapes – he was English, too. In a purposefully diversely-cast staff, his foreignness had been just about the only thing making him stand out. Some people even called him King Louis in playful reference to the monarchy. So much for that.

 

He grabbed the new kid's hand and gave it a quick pump before dropping it and starting to step past him. “Hey, it's nice to meet you. Listen, I've got a meeting, sorry.” He ducked his head and took off before the Styles kid could say another word.

 

*

 

 _Boom, boom, boom._ Harry groaned and whipped the pillow off his head. There it was again. Two for two nights in his new apartment in Little Armenia had featured this inexplicable, body-vibrating thudding noise keeping him awake.

 

It wasn't so much the noise itself that bothered him, he thought again as he rolled out of bed, but the nature of it. It was clearly coming from above his room, but his apartment was on the top floor of a building with no roof access. He couldn't fathom what could be causing it short of Santa's reindeer, and it wasn't December, and Santa's reindeer weren't made out of lead, presumably.

 

He creaked across the old wooden floor to the tiny window and stuck his head out for the millionth time, straining to locate the boom's origin, and once again hearing nothing. It only seemed to sound when he was in bed. He sighed, pulled on a shirt over his gray sweatpants, and wandered out to the common area. It was dark except for the sliver of fridge light gleaming off the bright blond head of his new roommate, Cali-boy Niall.

 

Harry's foot squeaked over a rough patch in the floor and Niall's head snapped around.

 

“Oh, hey dude. I didn't know you were awake. Just getting a little snack.” He stepped away from the fridge, arms full of sliced meats, cheeses, and condiments. “You want?”

 

Harry grinned and flipped on the kitchen light. “That's all right. I guess your appetite is...healthier than mine. Must be the jet-lag.” He sat down at the little dining table that made a valiant attempt to delineate between a kitchen area and a living room. “Hey, do you ever hear that booming noise in here?”

 

“Huh?” Niall was sawing slices of bread off a fresh loaf of marble rye. “What noise?”

 

“It's just like this really deep booming. You can kind of feel it in your bones. It's almost like a pulse, but like, the pulse of a giant.”

 

Niall raised his eyebrows. “Like a pulse?” He slapped some salami on his bread. “I don't know about that. I hear the kid downstairs playing with his dog sometimes, but other than that...”

 

Harry could feel a tinge of judgment in his roommate's words and he thought it best to change the subject. “So how was your day?”

 

Niall immediately grinned. “What a nice new roommate I have. Asking about my day. What a lucky boy I am,” he chuckled, layering on cheese slices. “I should be asking you about your day! What kind of a prick am I! You just moved halfway around the world to live with the likes of me, and I'm out here making midnight sandwiches just ignoring you. What's going on with you, dude?”

 

It was true, Harry supposed, although he wasn't sure if Southern California was exactly halfway around the world from the greater Manchester area or not. It might as well have been, considering the gripping homesickness and hopelessness he'd felt these last couple of days. He hadn't slept more than a handful of hours since landing at LAX either, and everything around him was taking on an eerie surreal cast, like the stuff of nightmares. When he'd found this room on Craigslist and heard that it was in a place called Little Armenia, all he could think was that he'd be living in L.A., L.A, actual LaLa Land. The giddiness and joy of accepting his first job and starting his new life had come crashing down pretty quickly when he closed his bedroom door that first night and felt more alone than he'd ever felt in his life. _Boom, boom, boom_.

 

“I'm all right, I guess,” he smiled softly. “Went to my new job today. That was pretty exciting.”

 

“Oh, yeah! HiveNews!” Niall slapped the bread roof on his skyscraper of a sandwich and joined Harry at the table. “That's a sweet gig, dude. I hear they have a ball pit in the breakroom.”

 

Harry chuckled. “They do, actually.” Although he hadn't seen anyone use it. “What about your job? Teaching golf sounds like quite the 'sweet gig' to me.”

 

Niall grinned, a piece of lettuce poking through his lips. “I can't complain. I've always loved the sport. Played ever since I was little and the clubs were taller than me.”

 

Harry smiled back, but couldn't help thinking it sounded like a joke Niall had told a million times before.

 

He felt a lot calmer when he went back into his room. Niall was a good guy. His friendliness went far in reducing the sting he'd been feeling ever since this morning when the very first new coworker he'd met wouldn't even tell him his name. He was so much more relaxed now that he thought he might actually be able to sleep.

 

Back in bed with the lights out, Harry closed his eyes and let images dance across the backs of his eyelids. The HiveNews logo, the dizzying army of desks that lined the office, Niall's sandwich-stuffed face. Then better: his mom, his sister, his friends back home. His favorite journalism professor telling him he had the most potential she'd ever seen. He drifted into a cozy sleep.

 

It didn't last long. Maybe it was the booming, maybe it was choking on his own snores, but suddenly Harry found his eyes wide open and staring at the edge of his bed.

 

Staring directly into the face of a little girl.

 

A little girl standing at the foot of his bed, smiling.

 

It all happened in an instant. Seeing her. Being flooded with terror. Throwing his pillow across the bed at her. Before he had a moment to think anything at all, he found himself on his feet, racing for the light, and staring at his pillow on the floor in the spot where she had been.

 

Harry picked up the pillow and clutched it to his sweating chest. He stood there breathing heavily for untold minutes as the adrenaline raced around his body and he blinked blankly at the floor. Finally he went out into the common area, bee-lining for Niall's room.

 

He found Niall's door partway open, soft candlelight glowing behind it, and gentle guitar music emanating from within. He almost thought he recognized the song, but he couldn't place it. Dylan, maybe?

 

But it wasn't. When he got closer, he caught a glimpse of Niall sitting cross-legged on the bed, a guitar in his lap, singing so quietly into the dim room that Harry couldn't make out the words. He took a step back into the living room and found himself sinking to the floor. He leaned back against the wall just outside Niall's room, still clutching his pillow, listening until he fell asleep.

 

*

 

“Fire!” shouted Keith, his hands held up in goal-post formation somewhere between Zayn's hand and Louis' mouth. Zayn launched a cheese puff in a perfect trajectory: it sailed through the posts and straight home.

 

“Not too shabby, mate,” Louis nodded approvingly as he crunched it down.

 

The three coworkers were gathered in the breakroom for lunch. None of them had brought anything to eat, nor felt like going out into the L.A. summer heat, so they were just picking at the free snacks that the Hive always kept on hand for staff. Time was edging dangerously close to the end of the break period, but none of them felt particularly concerned, Louis least of all, after Cheryl had rejected his latest GraFitiZ review out of hand the day before. While he couldn't say that he outright hated what his job had become, wishing for more and coming up empty time and again had become exhausting. It was days like this he consciously remembered how thankful he was to have such good friends at work.

 

Keith, like Zayn, had been Louis' pal from the beginning. They had started at the same time in a big fresh batch of new writers, editors, and content creators hired to keep up with the Hive's sudden and massive spike in popularity.

 

But over the last year or so, Keith's booming personality and extreme affability, not to mention his over-sized glasses and enormous grin, had won him time in more and more videos. He had ultimately been invited by superstar Eugene to join him in a new series, the Shot Boys, about a small group of guys who in each new installment would give some crazy activity “a shot,” make asses of themselves, and then wind down and chat about the experience over shots of Jagermeister, Eugene's favorite drink, unanimously loathed by the rest of them. At this point he was actually getting recognized somewhat regularly on the streets, and was probably only a couple million views away from getting his own office in the back by Eugene; but he still ate lunch with Louis and Zayn every day.

 

“Hey, chumps, how's it hanging?” The overpowering smell of musk and vanilla cologne filled their nostrils as Eugene suddenly appeared behind them, clapping one arm around Keith and one around Louis. Louis could see Zayn visibly stiffen.

 

“Ah, well, my friend, as you can see, we are just enjoying this excellent spread of cuisine prepared by the world-renowned Chef Hive,” Keith mocked in a terrible French accent, holding up the half-eaten bag of cheese puffs to Eugene's face.

 

Eugene swatted it away casually. “Delightful. So, Lewis, is it?” He turned to face Louis.

 

“Erm, it's Louis actually,” said Louis. They had met multiple times.

 

“Yeah, it's Louis,” Zayn's voice could be heard faintly and as dryly as if he hadn't touched liquid in weeks.

 

Eugene squeezed Louis' shoulder, raising his eyebrows almost imperceptibly. “Got it, great. Louis. So hey, I hear you're the man for some quick and slick editing work around here, is that right?”

 

Louis glanced at Zayn who was leaning so far toward the conversation that he was basically resting his entire body on Keith.

 

“Sure? I mean, I didn't know I had the reputation, but I can do...quick and slick,” Louis chuckled. “What have you got?”

 

Eugene grinned. “I knew you'd be my man, man. My Keith here only associates with the cream of the crop, isn't that right, Keith?” He moved directly behind Keith, one hand on each of his shoulders, squeezing in a faux-massage.

 

Keith gave Louis a half eye roll of commiseration, but you couldn't hear a drop of sarcasm in his voice. “Absolutely, man. You know it. But hey, Eugene, what's the project you have for our friend Louis here?”

 

Eugene was now gazing into the middle distance at a table of other staff members across the breakroom. “Oh, no biggie, just a new series of mine. Hey, who's that over there with Jesy?”

 

They all followed his gaze to the gorgeous girl in her trademark orange beanie. Jesy was Keith's huge office crush. They had actually gone out a couple of times, but Keith hadn't been able to figure out yet if they had been dates or not.

 

She was leaning close over a phone and laughing with none other than that charming new limey bastard Styles, as a few other staff members looked on smiling.

 

“That's the new guy,” Louis sighed. “Give him hell.”

 

Eugene blinked furiously as if trying to focus his view of the newb. “I'd like to give him _something_.”

 

Keith groaned. Louis sucked in through his teeth. Zayn stared daggers at Louis through a panicked pout until Louis finally looked back at him and gave him a reassuring nod.

 

“Naw, no, he's not that good-looking, mate, innit? Looks like his hair hasn't seen a comb in about a week. Not to mention that ratty t-shirt,” Louis said, inwardly considering that the Rolling Stones tour shirt full of holes Harry had on was probably vintage and actually rather pricey.

 

“Yeah, yeah. He's not that great at all. Eugene? Don't you think?” Zayn, the primary lyricist for his band, normally had quite a way with words.

 

Eugene tore his eyes away from Harry and for the first time looked down at Zayn. Louis could practically hear the angels singing in Zayn's head as they all watched Eugene remove one of his perfectly-manicured hands from Keith's shoulder to place it on Zayn's as if in slow-motion.

 

“Don't worry, Zayn. You're still the hottest off-camera guy at the Hive.” He started to back out of the room. “Louis, I'm going to send that vlog footage your way, a'ight? It's only about ten or eleven hours. Get me like, a ten minute clip? For next week?” He did finger guns and was gone.

 

Zayn let out a rush of air as if he hadn't breathed in the last five minutes. “He _knows_ my _name_?” he squealed.

 

“ _Ten or eleven hours?”_ yelped Louis.

 

“He's starting a _vlog_ series?” bellowed Keith. “How many series' does he need? Who wants to watch him getting dressed and driving to the grocery store and picking his nose?”

 

“He thinks I'm _hot?_ ” panted Zayn.

 

“Not as hot as himself,” Louis muttered, his eyes finding their way back to that table across the room as if they had a mind of their own.

 

*

 

Harry pulled the enormous set of headphones off his ears, rubbed his eyes, and scooted away from his desk, swinging around toward Jesy.

 

She smiled back at him expectantly. “Yes?”

 

“You're so good on camera! You're so cool and professional.” He shook his head. “Not anything like the girl who has her desk next to mine.”

 

“Hey!” She gave him a playful shove. “You really liked me? What videos did you watch?”

 

“All of them! All I've been doing since lunch is sitting here watching your videos, as if you didn't notice. God, you look like a different person. All that make-up. No orange bobble cap!” He reached across and gave her hat a little tug. “I think I actually like you better this way, but still. I'm so impressed. I can't wait to have a chance to make something like you make.”

 

Jesy beamed, pulling her beanie gently back into place. “Thanks, kid. But you know you'll never get a chance if you're just going to sit here watching videos all day.”

 

Harry's eyes widened in panic. “But that's what Cheryl told me to do? She said to get a feel for the content? To look for gaps? Did I misunderstand, or-?”

 

“Relax!” Jesy burst out laughing. “Oh my god, you're adorable. Of course you didn't misunderstand. But I mean...” She batted her eyelashes. “Enough about me. Have you had any lightbulbs go off yet? Seen any 'gaps'?”

 

Harry looked down at the floor, a heavy gloom suddenly falling over him. With all the Hive videos he'd just gone through, for as honestly impressed as he had been by Jesy's work, he simply couldn't ignore the fact that none of what he'd seen matched up with anything he'd imagined for his journalistic career.

 

Her videos experimented with fashion, explored style tastes across different parts of town, blended humor and creativity in make-up usage, and on and on. Her ideas were endless, and all beautifully executed. But where was the video, he wondered, where she busted down the door of a sweatshop in Chinatown and demanded to know how all those clothes were being made? Where was the video that studied men who wear make-up, and analyzed just what exactly in hell it said about gender in our culture that there were so few of them? Where were those videos? The real source of his gloom was already knowing without a doubt that those were most certainly not the “gaps” that Cheryl and the rest of the editors were looking to fill.

 

“I...I guess I'm not sure where to start. Can you help me?” He looked back over at his new friend imploringly.

 

She put her hand on his arm and squeezed. “Of course. I'll help you with anything I can. But the first thing you need to do is just get to brainstorming. Cheryl's going to want to see that you have ideas, and a lot of them. And she's going to want to hear one she likes, and fast. Or it won't be long until you're less of a content creator of a content...rearranger,” she chuckled, nodding toward the back of the room where the video editors sat.

 

“Ouch,” Harry eked out a fake laugh. “Is that the way this place works? Nowhere to go but down?”

 

“Oh, no, no, no. Not at all. Haven't you seen Eugene around? Or look at Keith. You can definitely go up. Up and up. But I'm sure Cheryl picked you for this position because you submitted some good _content_ with your resume, _n'est-ce pas_? And that's why you're here in the good old United States of Amazing. To give us that sweet, sweet content!”

 

As Jesy went back to work, Harry begrudgingly clicked the red X on his video player and opened up a Word document. He watched the cursor blink at him tauntingly.

 

 _Bust a sweat shop,_ he typed.

 

_Bridge the gender divide._

 

He leaned back in his extremely comfortable ergonomic desk chair and sighed, thinking of the articles from his university paper he had sent to the Hive. He _was_ a content creator, goddammit, and a good one. So what if he had to make content in a slightly different...area of interest? He could do it, and he could do it well. He _would_ do it well.

 

Harry felt a couple of tears prickle his eyes and quickly put his face in his hands to hide them. He had become a veritable roller coaster of emotion lately, one minute excited and thrilled and ready to get started on something; the next completely sure that he didn't have a prayer and it was all pointless to begin with. Rationally he know these moods had something to do with completely uprooting his life, saying goodbye to his family for the first time ever, and barely sleeping for several days.

 

Not to mention, he suddenly remembered, sitting up straighter in his chair, not to mention sleeping on a hardwood floor for several hours after seeing an actual freaking _ghost_ in his room the night before!

 

How had he not thought about that all day? Maybe she had put a curse on him! Maybe she was inside him! Well maybe not that, he thought, but weren't people often affected by the emotions that ghosts spread throughout their homes? A sad ghost spreading sadness, an angry ghost spreading homicidal mania...

 

It all seemed so obvious all of a sudden. So perfect. Something he was genuinely interested in, that was most definitely also a “gap” in the Hive's collection of content.

 

He stood up and threw his arms around Jesy.

 

“What the fuck?” She yanked off her headphones and twisted to look at him.

 

“Lightbulb!” He gave her a big squeeze and then marched determinedly toward the editorial halls to pitch his first HiveNews content idea to Cheryl.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've enjoyed this story, please consider reblogging this Tumblr post! http://mooninherhair.tumblr.com/post/168749096729/the-unexplained-mooninherhair-one-direction  
> And feel free to say Hi to me over there. Thanks!!


	2. Episode 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has just moved to Los Angeles to work for HiveNews Media, and his dark mood from homesickness and his creepy new apartment inspire a brilliant idea for a new paranormal video series. Unfortunately, he finds himself partnered with the biggest ghost skeptic of them all. Will they be able to get along well enough to get the series off the ground? And what's going on with the other unexplained events that are beginning to surround their lives?
> 
> This story is inspired by the series Buzzfeed Unsolved, which pairs a believer and a skeptic to investigate hauntings and unsolved true crimes. It's really awesome, so check it out if you haven't yet. If you're a Buzzfeed fan, you might find some other familiar "faces" floating around this story, too. Thanks for reading!

“Just drink it, Zayn!” shouted Jesy, waggling the shot glass at him for the umpteenth time.

 

He held up his hand to block the shot. “Just wait. Just tell me for sure. He's definitely coming?”

 

Jesy grabbed his hand and forcibly placed the the vodka between his fingers. “You know I don't like having to repeat myself! I say someone's coming, they're coming! Let's do this!”

 

Her normally honey-sweet voice cracked a bit as she yelled to be heard over the band playing at the back of the bar. She picked up her own shot and held it toward Louis and Zayn. “Are we doing this, boys?”

 

“Hell yes, we're doing this. Zayn, cheers to Eugene being on the way with Keith as we speak, right?” Louis held out his own shot.

 

Zayn frowned. “You dicks better be right, or this vodka is coming back your way later.”

 

“Gross,” Jesy groaned as they clinked glasses and threw back their liquor.

 

It took a lot to get Zayn to drink on a work night, and he never had more than a drink or two; but the promise of Eugene being there had gotten him out the door with no persuading at all.

 

For his own part, Louis was keen to go out whenever, but when Keith had invited them to meet him and Jesy after work, Louis couldn't help but feel particularly inclined at the chance to pick Jesy's brain about that damn new kid. Harry and Jesy had been virtually inseparable since he'd started: they sat right next to each other, and they were clearly working together on something. If it had literally anything at all to do with music, Louis was going to scream.

 

He turned to face Jesy and gave her an endearing smile. “Thanks for the shot, babe. You're a darling. What's been going on with you lately? Any new projects?”

 

“Any bumping uglies with Keith yet?” Zayn bellowed. He was kind of a lightweight. Louis couldn't blame him, he supposed, for steering the conversation away from where Louis wanted it to go, since Louis had so far steadfastly refused to mention anything to his friend about his ridiculous jealousy of New Guy McGee.

 

Jesy put her chin in her hand and gave Zayn an innocent stare. “I have no idea what you're talking about!” She took a long pull of her beer. “But if we were, we would be bumping beautifuls!”

 

“Who's bumping beautifuls?” shouted Eugene, materializing at their table's edge, a tray crowded with brimming shot glasses balanced effortlessly on one hand.

 

“Hey, Eugene! Oh, hey, man. We didn't see you come in. Or go to the bar. Hey, man.” Zayn, eloquent as ever in the company of the stunning Korean beauty, leaped ungracefully out of his chair to take the tray of shots and set it on the table.

 

“There's the most beautiful woman in the bar!” Keith appeared behind Eugene, a pint in each hand and an ear-to-ear grin on his face. “Hey, gorgeous!” He bent down to Jesy and they shared a chaste kiss.

 

So it was finally on, after all, Louis grinned to himself. When Keith was settled in the booth with his arm around Jesy, Louis reached across the table and gave him a fist-bump.

 

“Lewis! Bro! Nice job with the first vlog, man. I heard it got a cool three million views on its first day up today.”

 

Louis did his best to turn up the corners of his mouth at Eugene. “Yeah, man. Congratulations. Looks like you're the star of your 27-thousandth hit web series.”

 

“Right on! Let's go, chumps, these shots aren't going to shoot themselves!” Eugene, still standing, as he often was, started passing around the little glasses of Jagermeister to the group, who exchanged surreptitious glances of disgust at the murky licorice beverage.

 

As they all put their glasses together, Louis winked at his friends. “I guess we're all Shot Boys tonight!”

 

It was the first of an unquantifiable amount of the foul brown liquid that they downed that evening. The hours wore on, cheeks got redder, the band was replaced with another band, and Zayn inched his way closer and closer to the edge of the booth to where Eugene held fort at the head of the table.

 

Louis wasn't quite sure yet whether he supported his friend's unrequited love, but the Jager was making him feel warm and amenable, so he decided to throw him a bone.

 

“Hey, Eugene. Did Zayn ever tell you that he actually lived in Seoul for a year teaching English?”

 

“No shit?” Eugene's face contorted with genuine interest and he turned to Zayn.

 

Before anyone else could decide to care about Zayn's adventures in East Asia, Louis leaned across the table and grabbed Jesy and Keith's hands.

 

“So this is happening, huh?”

 

Keith chuckled. “ _This_ is happening,” he pointed between him and Jesy. “I'm not sure you're ever going to make _that_ happen.” He nodded at Eugene and Zayn.

 

“I don't know,” Jesy said. “I think there's a fair chance it'll happen. But a one hundred percent chance it will end with your little buddy getting eaten alive.”

 

Louis waved a hand dismissively. “He'll be fine. Hey, speaking of little buddies, what's the story with you and your new little buddy? My fellow countryman with the untamed hair?”

 

“Harry! Oh my god, he's just the best ever. Isn't he, Keith?”

 

“The literal best ever,” Keith nodded.

 

“Oh, shut up, you don't even know him.” Louis pouted into a sip of beer.

 

“Maybe not, but if this gal likes him, so does this guy,” Keith patted his chest.

 

“Well, what's so great about him?”

 

Jesy smiled. “He's just a sweetie, and he's smart, and real ambitious. He had the best idea for a new series on like his first day, and Cheryl approved it like instantly. I'm actually doing it with him!”

 

Louis' eyebrows shot up. “A series? Like, you're the on-camera?”

 

“Nope, we're co-hosting!” she beamed. “We already filmed the first episode today. It was so, so good! Cheryl even came to watch for a bit and she just loved it.”

 

“Tell him what it's about!” Keith's eyes were sparkling. “He's going to freak.”

 

Jesy dropped her smile and looked Louis dead in the eye. “Are you ready for this?”

 

“Ready for what?!”

 

“It's about ghosts!”

 

Louis set his beer down a little too heavily, spilling some over the rim of the glass. “What do you mean, 'It's about ghosts?'”

 

Keith guffawed. “I told you he was going to freak!”

 

“I'm not freaking. Just—go ahead. Tell me more.”

 

Jesy laughed. “I don't get it. Is it that you're scared of ghosts? Are you currently being haunted?”

 

Louis rolled his eyes. “I can't be scared of something that _doesn't exist._ ”

 

Jesy nodded knowingly. “I see, I see. You're one of those! A no-funster!”

 

“To the no-funster!” Keith grabbed one of the stray shots scattered around the table, held it up, and slammed it back without waiting for anyone else to join him.

 

“All right, I'm a no-funster. So what do you guys do, interview ghosts? Ask them their thoughts on current events?”

 

“Naturally! But specifically, today we filmed an episode about this famous exorcism that happened in the '80s of this little girl. Mainly it's just like Harry telling the story of what happened, and me listening and asking questions about it. We tried to make it kind of funny, you know, but also kind of scary? Oh my god!”

 

Louis jumped. “Is there a ghost behind me?”

 

“No! I just realized I should ask you, do you mind starting to put the footage together for us tomorrow morning? I'm dying to get it posted as soon as possible, and you're just the best at that stuff.”

 

“Is your mouse-finger broken? Why can't you do it?”

 

Jesy was imperturbable. “Harry and I are doing an on-site shoot tomorrow! He had the coolest idea to go to like these actual places that are haunted and tell the story of how they got that way and then like stay until it's pitch black and walk around with flashlights and stuff! We're meeting at this place, the Windsor House, in the morning, over in Reseda? The Hive booked it out for the whole day.”

 

Soon, it was nearly bar close. Not long after Louis had begrudglingly agreed to edit the footage of _The Unexplained,_ Jesy and Keith had left with Eugene. He always held his liquor better than anyone, never seemed remotely drunk, and had agreed to drive them home.

 

Though Zayn stared after Eugene long after he was out of sight, he would never abandon his boy and was, after all, Louis' ride. They both wanted to hear the end of the final band's set, anyway, in case, just in case, that last song of the night would teach them that one elusive secret they needed to know to break out of their ruts and finally make a name for themselves in music.

 

*

 

“Holy shit, that's a serious camera!” Harry called to Ellie, who was shuffling her feet as she tried to stay within the minimal strip of shade cast by the nearest palm tree. “I thought we'd just have like GoPros or something.”

 

“No way, dude. The Hive is serious business. And I could tell from yesterday's shoot, Cheryl is already way into this series.” Ellie had operated the cameras and audio in the studio for Harry and Jesy the day before while they filmed the exorcism episode. Afterwards she'd told them she was a “paranormal nutjob” and made them promise to let her film everything _The Unexplained_ would ever need.

 

Harry gave Ellie a quick hug and then stepped back to take in the Windsor House. It was a true Victorian mansion, sprawling out wide in either direction and scraping the sky at three stories with a turreted roofline. The olive greens, creams, browns, and oranges that covered the ornately decorated exterior made it all the more suited to be a haunted house.

 

They were standing at the edge of a long yard surrounded by elaborate gardens; beyond that, a tall, spikey wrought-iron fence wrapped around the property. The entire place stuck out like a sore thumb in the now low-key neighborhood in which it stood; but since the last owners had passed away, the house had become a historical site and was open daily to the public for tours. The public, though, didn't have the support of the Hive behind them to book the place out for the entire day, Harry thought grinning.

 

“This place is incredible. Have you been here before?”

 

Ellie rolled her eyes. “No shit I've been here before. I told you, I'm literally all about the paranormal. I've been here like a million times since I was a kid.”

 

“So did you ever...see anything?”

 

Ellie shifted her camera to her other hand. “I guess I wouldn't say I really _saw_ anything? But I kind of like... _felt_ something? There's a weird energy in some places. And tons of cold spots.”

 

Harry felt a trail of goosebumps tickle the back of his next. “I bet you've never been in there alone at night, though.”

 

Ellie grinned. “Definitely not! Are you scared?”

 

Harry shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand and squinted at the windows of the top floor. Dark shapes seemed to shift behind all of them, but it was probably a trick of the light. “Not really. Not right now, anyway.” But he would be, he thought. He could already picture himself leaping into Jesy's arms like Scooby into Shaggy's. “Hey, have you heard anything from Jesy? She's usually pretty punctual.”

 

Ellie pulled out her phone and peered at the screen. “Nothing. She's only like fifteen minutes late though. Actually, you know what? She told me last night she was going to go out with Keith and some people. She's probably just hungover and off to a slow start.”

 

“Oh, right. Makes sense,” Harry agreed through a pang of envy. Why hadn't she asked him to join? He'd like to have a drink with Jesy and Keith Whoever and some people. As it stood, his entire social life outside of work consisted exclusively of Niall and any apparitions that saw fit to appear at the foot of his bed.

 

The minutes ticked by and their skin grew hotter as it soaked in the bright Southern California sun. Eventually they decided to move to the porch of the house itself where they could get some shade, although Harry immediately felt his stomach do a somersault as they got closer. He situated himself on the top porch step leaning against the railings on the side, unwilling to turn his back to whatever was lurking in the house.

 

When they had been waiting just shy of an hour, their pleasant conversation was running out of steam and they both took out their phones to text and call Jesy. Harry was holding out hope that she'd simply gotten the time wrong, but when she didn't respond to either of them, his hope faded. Did she not want to be a part of the series anymore? Was it over before it even got off the ground?

 

“I'm going to call Cheryl and see what she thinks,” declared Ellie, interrupting his doomsday thoughts.

 

It turned out what Cheryl thought was that they should get starting filming as much as they needed of the house by daylight and scope out a place to set up for the filming of the storytelling segment. Hopefully, by the time they were done with all that, Jesy would have shown up.

 

They met with the groundskeeper of the property, who worked in a small building away from the main house that might have been a garage at one point. He unlocked the house, told them to look down and check for floors before they walked through any doorways, and to let him know if they needed anything. Then he went back to his Sudoku and what had appeared to be an actual flask.

 

They did as they were told. Harry found that once they were focused on filming and finding good shots, he didn't really have a chance to feel scared, especially since it was broad daylight.

 

The house was pretty fascinating. The owner who built it in the late 19th century had believed that she was being threatened by evil spirits, and that the only way to keep them from harming her and her family was to build the most convoluted and nonsensical piece of architecture known to man: Staircases led to nowhere. Windows looked out into other rooms of the house. Doors led to sheer drops down to the next story. There were mazes of hallways that led back to where you started without ever taking you anywhere. It was “super cool,” Ellie declared, and Harry agreed.

 

By the time they had filmed the entire house, inside and out, and Harry had arranged a makeshift set in a picture window for filming the storytelling, hours had gone by and it was coming on evening. It suddenly occurred to Harry that they hadn't yet heard a single peep from Jesy. He and Ellie collapsed in the two chairs he'd set up for filming and shrugged their shoulders at each other.

 

“Maybe...do you think _you_ could do Jesy's part?” Harry suggested tentatively.

 

Ellie swung her head vigorously from side to side. “No way. Hell no. I am strictly behind-the-camera.”

 

“But you're...very pretty.”

 

Ellie laughed. “You're adorable. No, it's not that. I just clam up in front of a camera. No idea what to say, where to look. I wouldn't be able to keep up with you. There's no way I'd be able to just think of all those questions and jokes off the top of my head like Jesy did yesterday.”

 

Harry sighed. “I get it. I guess I better tell Cheryl we're at a standstill.” He shot off a text to Cheryl, and they both continued to sit, swiping half-heartedly at their phones and occasionally commenting on what they were looking at.

 

“Oh my god,” Ellie muttered after eons of silence. “Did you see what Eugene posted on SnapChat?”

 

“WHAT DID EUGENE POST ON BLOODY SNAPCHAT?” boomed a voice to their left, sending them both leaping straight out of their chairs and into each others' arms in squeals of surprise.

 

The owner of the voice doubled over laughing. “This might actually be fun,” grinned Louis Tomlinson, rubbing his hands together diabolically.

 

*

 

“Louis!” Ellie gasped, breathless. “What the hell are you doing here?” She was stumbling out of Harry's grasp, color partially drained from her face, but nothing compared to how white Harry had gone.

 

Louis stepped forward and gave the camerawoman a quick hug. “Sorry about that, love. I didn't know I'd have that much impact.” He stepped back and held his hand out to Harry. “We've not officially met. Louis Tomlinson. I'm your co-host for the day.”

 

Harry unclenched a fist he'd had wrapped around Ellie's arm. He took Louis' hand loosely, like he was struggling to bend his fingers back into a normal shape.

 

“I seem to recall we have met,” he said, eyeballing Louis' face suspiciously. “Only you opted not to tell me your name.”

 

Louis squeezed Harry's hand a little too tightly and gave it several firm pumps. “Yeah, you're right. Sorry about that mate.” He moved to sit down in one of the shooting chairs. “Is this the place then, yeah? Should we get started?”

 

Harry took a quick step in front of the chair, blocking it. “H-hold on there. What do you mean you're my co-host? What are you doing here? What happened to Jesy? Are you even an on-camera? Don't you edit videos?”

 

Louis rubbed his temples. “Slow down there, big guy. I can only answer one question at a time.”

 

Ellie interjected. “He is on-camera, actually. Haven't you had the pleasure of watching his fine work in 'Random People Eat World's Spiciest Pepper'? The audience was really into that one. Lots of views. Comments calling for more screen-time from the 'funny Australian dude'.”

 

“Yeah, cheers for that. It was one of my crowning achievements, for sure.” Louis scooted past Harry and sat down anyway. “To answer some of your barrage of questions, unbeknownst to you apparently, I've been the one editing your little storytelling session about exorcism from yesterday. Been working on it all day, actually, just posted it. I was all set to go home and crack open a nice cold one when Cheryl grabbed me and told me I had to come here and fill in for Jesy. Seeing as I'm so intimately familiar with the...show.” He crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair. “So...” he gestured at the camera. “Shall we?”

 

Harry blinked at Louis blankly a few times, still catching his breath. Louis tried to ignore Harry's chest rising and falling through his tight white t-shirt. Finally Harry turned to look at Ellie helplessly.

 

Ellie patted him on the arm. “Lights, camera, action, I guess. What Cheryl wants, Cheryl gets. Come on, kid.” She walked around behind her camera. “We've already checked our sounds and light levels, so we might as well get started.”

 

Louis watched as Harry slapped some color back into his cheeks, ran a hand through his hair, and finally arranged himself on the chair next to him. His deer-in-headlights look seemed to morph impressively quickly into the charismatic yet serious expression of a professional newscaster. Louis couldn't help but smile.

 

When Cheryl had literally chased him down in the parking lot as he'd been climbing into Zayn's car, demanding that he head over to the Windsor House, his first emotion had naturally been annoyance. But as the drive had gone on, he'd started to feel fairly pleased about the idea. He didn't exactly have anything productive to say about ghosts or whatever, he'd thought, but any exposure he could get would give him that much more leverage toward getting his own column or series down the line. Plus, although he was inwardly well-aware that his apparent decision to make the new guy his nemesis was baseless and idiotic, he couldn't help but hear the old adage ringing in his ears: _Keep your enemies closer._

 

Before he knew it, Ellie had switched on some bright lights, and Harry was smiling at the camera saying, “Welcome to another episode of _The Unexplained_. I'm Harry Styles.” He looked at Louis pointedly.

 

Louis sat up straighter, suddenly wishing he'd maybe prepared even remotely for this. “Whoa, hey there, everyone. I'm Louis Tomlinson.”

 

Harry nodded, showing no sign of being fazed by Louis' awkward start. “Today we're coming to you from the Windsor House, a known haunted landmark here in Los Angeles, to talk about the history behind the house and then take a night tour by flashlight only and see what we can see.”

 

“A _known_ haunted landmark?” Louis smirked.

 

Harry glanced at him, a slight set of annoyance now taking over his mouth. “That's right, Louis. Generations of visitors to the house have reported sightings of apparitions, unexplained noises, cold spots, and more.”

 

“Cold spots? So it's a bit drafty. What's the big deal? They just need to get some of those, you know, fabric tube thingies you stuff along the cracks at the bottom of the doors. Problem solved.”

 

Harry burst out laughing, taking Louis by surprise. “Am I right or am I right?” he added, waiting for Harry to compose himself.

 

Harry rubbed his eyes quickly. “As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, my co-host here is not a passionate believer in the paranormal like I am-”

 

“No, I am not.”

 

“No. But nevertheless, without further ado, let's get into it. Construction on the Windsor House began in 1892 by Mary Windsor. She moved to the area from the East Coast after her husband and children were all killed in a fire of their Massachusetts home. Wondering why she had been spared, Mary had begun visiting priests and psychic mediums regularly seeking answers. Ultimately, one medium told her that a group of evil spirits had a vendetta against the Windsor family, as a famous ancestor of hers had invented a new kind of gun that had become widely used in battle and was responsible for taking many lives.”

 

“Hold on.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“That was just—a lot. It sounds to me like this psychic medium thought it would be pretty funny to mess with this poor woman.”

 

“I'm sure that's not the case. Mediums take their jobs very seriously.”  
  


“Oh, do they? Do you speak on behalf of all mediums? Are you sure they're not just, hm, sociopathic con artists who take advantage of grieving people?”

 

Harry was staring straight at Louis, head fully turned, his face flickering between amusement and irritation. “I'm sure some of them are. That's fair. But let's just assume good faith here, so we can proceed with the story, all right?”

 

Louis waved his hand. “Fair enough, fair enough. Proceed with the _ghosties,_ ” he mocked with a spooky lilt, wiggling his fingers at Harry.

 

The rest of the storytelling continued in much the same vein. Louis interrupted whenever he felt like to make fun of Harry's claims, and Harry kept on cracking up and looking pissed off in equal parts.

 

When the story was over and Ellie switched off the camera, Louis jumped up, eager to begin the scary, scary flashlight tour. Harry, on the other hand, was staring straight ahead at nothing, his jaw set in a firm line.

 

“What's up? Do you see a ghost already?” Louis waved his hand in front of Harry's face, but Harry blinked once and didn't react.

 

“What's his deal?” Louis shuffled over to Ellie.

 

She shrugged as she worked at collapsing the tripod and stuffing it into its bag. “If I had to venture a guess, I'd say...well, it wasn't exactly the same vibe as it was with Jesy.”

 

Louis chuckled, thinking about the footage of Jesy's sweet, encouraging face he'd been looking at all day. He could agree that he'd been at least marginally less supportive.

 

“True.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “But I'm not Jesy, am I?”

 

“No, you're not,” piped up Harry, looking grimly at Louis. “Let's just get through this, all right?”

 

Ellie handed them each a GoPro and a flashlight from her bag. “Louis, we decided you two should be filming what you see while I'm filming you, okay? So just, you know, point and shoot and don't fuck it up.”

 

Night had fallen completely while they filmed the storytelling, and the only lights on in the house were in the room where they stood. Harry, who seemed to be visibly shaking, switched on his flashlight and his camera and took off into dark hallway nearby without a word.

 

Louis and Ellie exchanged a look before switching on their own cameras and taking off after him.

 

“Woo! Let's find some ghosties! Come at me!” Louis cheered as they moved down the hall, when it became apparent that Harry wasn't about to say anything.

 

They arrived in the first pitch-black room they could find, which seemed to be the dining room. Harry turned to Louis. “You know, I actually think you're not supposed to _taunt_ evil spirits. Just to be on the safe side.”

 

Louis was shining his light around the recesses of the room. “Right, right. Wouldn't want to anger a _ghost_. It might _murder_ us.”

 

Harry shook his head and walked further into the room. “Well, at least then you'd have to admit ghosts are real.”

 

“I wouldn't be admitting anything! I'd be dead!”

 

They worked their way through the first and second floors, finding, of course, no spirits of any kind. Harry explained to Louis and the cameras that they would be carefully checking the audio later to see if any ghosts were trying to reach out to them in the background. Louis rolled his eyes, figuring he would be the one to have to troll through hours of recordings the next day.

 

Up on the third floor, Harry stopped in a large bedroom at the top of the stairs and waved them inside.

 

“This was the bedroom of Mary Windsor herself, and it's widely agreed to be the most haunted room in the house.”

 

“Shit, get me out of here!” Louis squealed, miming running for the door.

 

“Ha ha,” Harry deadpanned. “So I had the idea, and I'm not happy about it, but I think we have to do it: that we should each sit in here alone for five minutes and see if we can get Mary to speak to us.”

 

Louis nodded seriously. “Of course. Sounds scientific to me. Are we doing flashlights or no flashlights?”

 

Harry grimaced. “I think we have to do no flashlights. Just us sitting in the dark and trying to communicate.”

 

Moments later, Louis found himself alone in the room, switching off his light and staring into nothingness. Not even a streetlight peeked through the heavy old curtains draped across the window. He wasn't about to say anything on or off camera, but the feeling was, to put it mildly, unsettling.

 

“So, hey, Mary! Are you hanging out in here? What's the good news?” He felt compelled to fill the silence pressing at his ears and the darkness pressing all around him.

 

“You've built quite the little architectural gem here, Mary,” he went on.

 

The silence continued, and Louis began to feel a little chilly, hoping it didn't show up on camera. Finally the door swung open and Harry appeared. “Anything?”

 

Louis stood up from the bed and brushed his hands on his thighs casually. “Yeah. She stopped by, we had a nice chat. She's pretty disappointed in what we've done to the environment.”

 

Harry cackled as Louis looked on bemused.

 

They switched places. Louis waited a few moments after the door shut but he couldn't resist the urge to freak Harry out. He gave Ellie a quick wink and then pounded on the door three times fast.

 

They heard a full-bodied scream erupt from inside.

 

“I knew you would do something like that and it still worked!” Harry shouted through the door.

 

After Harry's little tete-a-tete with Mary resulted shockingly in nothing, they continued their tour of the third and final floor of the house. Harry had given him quite the dirty look when emerging from the bedroom, but seemed to be relaxing now that they were almost finished.

 

“This should be one of the last rooms to look at,” Harry muttered, swinging open the door in front of him and beginning to step through.

 

Louis saw it before Harry did. On the other side of the door was the outside world, with nothing underneath but a long, hard fall. Instinctively, he grabbed Harry around the middle just as his right foot was about to land on empty air, and pulled him back into the safety of the hallway, both of them collapsing in a heap.

 

Harry was slowly shaking his head but otherwise not moving for a long time. As the spike of adrenaline faded from Louis body, he started noticing instead the firm abdominal muscles under his hands, which were still wrapped around Harry's torso.

 

“That was...close,” Harry finally said.

 

Louis give Harry's stomach a quick pat and then wriggled out from underneath him. “Yeah, I think we better cut that part out. The whole series might be canceled. It's too much of a liability. I mean, this, on top of the obvious potential for ghost murder.”

 

Harry cackled again, and they turned down a different hall to see the remainder of the house.

 

*

 

Haunted house. Haunted mansion. Haunted barn. Haunted house. Haunted office. Haunted dog? Haunted ranch.

 

Harry's eyes began to glaze over and droop shut as he scrolled through page after page of Google results suggesting haunted places he could visit next for _The Unexplained_. He was spoiled for choices. In fact, he had already prepped the stories for three more episodes and booked time at the locations. Cheryl had even given him permission to arrange travel to other states. The problem was just the small matter of who was going to go there with him.

 

He looked over at the empty chair of the desk next to his. It was the third day that Jesy hadn't shown up at work, and by now, more than taking it personally, he had started to genuinely worry about her. She could have a stomach flu, sure, but something infinitely worse would go further to explain why she hadn't bothered to call in sick. But he was helpless to do anything but go on hoping she was fine, and focus simply on her absence's impact on his own world.

 

After the shoot at the Windsor House, he and Louis had both agreed that the goal for the next episode should be Jesy's triumphant return as co-host. Louis had been funny, Harry could admit that much, and had willingly told him so; but going through the house with Louis and his relentless opposition had fallen short, to say the least, of his visions for the show, visions of himself and Jesy bravely facing down demons together. And frankly, though he would never say this to Louis, the constant jokes at his expense wore on him a little. It wasn't just a matter of believing in different things; it was insulting to his intelligence. If they just gave it another day, he thought, maybe Jesy would be back.

 

“A haunted dog?” came Ellie's voice from over his shoulder.

 

Harry turned. “Yeah, that's going on the list for sure. What's up?”

 

Ellie nodded in the direction of the breakroom. “Lunch?”

 

At the same instant she said the word, Harry's stomach did a little flip of hunger. He'd been so focused on the show, and Jesy, over the last few days, he really hadn't been eating much. In fact the last thing might have been the sandwich Niall had made him to bring to lunch the previous day. That can't be healthy, he thought rubbing his belly. “Yeah, let's go.”

 

In the breakroom, there was a heavy feeling in the air, less laughter and food-fighting than usual. It seemed, Harry supposed, that he wasn't the only one beginning to deeply worry about Jesy.

 

He and Ellie sat down at a the table where Keith, Louis, Zayn, and Eugene were speaking in hushed tones. He gave Louis a quick bro-nod before reaching over to pull the banana out of Ellie's lunch bag.

 

“Did you hear?” Louis asked grimly.

 

“Hear what?” asked Ellie, swatting at Harry's hand but letting him keep the banana.

 

“Keith talked to--” Zayn started.

 

“It's okay. I might as well say,” Keith interjected, holding up a hand. “I talked to Jesy's roommate this morning. Sam. I guess he's been in Mexico visiting his cousin the last two days. Apparently phones don't work in Mexico,” he rolled his eyes. “But he told me he hasn't heard from Jesy since that night. She sent him a text at 1:30: 'Getting In-and-Out, want any?' That was it.”

 

Harry glanced at Louis who was looking right at him but quickly looked away. “What does that mean? In-and-Out?”

 

Eugene rolled his eyes. “It's a burger place, kid. You're in America now, look alive.”

 

Harry blinked at him as the others shifted uncomfortably.

 

“Eugene dropped her and Keith off there to get food after we were all drinking that night,” explained Louis.

 

Ellie took a sip of her soda and looked at Keith. “Does that make you the last person to see her?”

 

Keith blushed and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. We grabbed some food and she walked home. I had to catch a bus.”

 

Ellie slammed down her soda can on the table. “ _You let her walk home alone_?”

 

The others grimaced while Ellie stared at Keith defiantly. He held his hands up in protest. “She lives literally _two blocks_ from the restaurant! Two blocks! What could happen in two blocks?”

 

Ellie groaned and set her head down on the table. Harry patted her hair.

 

“Anything could happen in two blocks,” he said softly, the creeping feeling sweeping over him that something _had_.

 

“No way, dudes,” Eugene declared, standing up. “That neighborhood is well-lit, full of people out at all hours of the night, and it seriously is _two blocks_. Don't get all up in Keith's business about this.” He gave Louis a harder-than-necessary punch in the shoulder. “More vlog footage coming your way this afternoon, man. Thanks!” He spun on his heel and was out of the room.

 

A few hours after lunch, Harry had expanded his list of haunted sites to ten and was beginning to write scripts for all of their stories. He was so deeply absorbed in the details of a purported “demon house” in Modesto that he jumped a foot in the air when Louis tapped him on the shoulder.

 

“What?!” he barked, more roughly than he intended.

 

Louis flinched but sat down in Jesy's vacant chair and scooted closer to Harry. “It looks like it's just you and me, mate.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Louis looked at the floor, hesitating. “I was just in with Cheryl.”

 

Harry felt a rock form in his guts. “Oh.”

 

Louis looked up at him. “No, you know what? This is actually good news.”  
  


Harry's head was in his hands. “How do you figure?”

 

“Haven't you checked the Windsor House video?”

 

Harry shook his head.

 

“Mate, you've got to check the success of your own vids. Get in the habit. Look.” He reached over Harry and pulled up the Hive's website. “See? It's the top video and it just went up yesterday. Even more views than Eugene's vlog.” He clicked on the video and scrolled down to the comments. “And look at this. People are obsessed.”

 

Harry squinted through the comments as Louis scrolled. The odd commentator bemoaned the replacement of Jesy, but the overwhelming consensus was that the “new Irish/British/Australian/German guy” or “the spicy pepper guy,” as it were, was hilarious.

 

“See? They love us together.”

 

Harry flinched. Louis kept scrolling.

 

“They're saying the first episode was too scary, and that this one added more comedy to balance it out.”

 

Louis was still scrolling but the screen had blurred over to Harry. He grabbed the mouse away.

 

“Okay, okay. I got it. So this is what Cheryl wants?”

 

Louis scooted back towards Jesy's desk. “To use Cheryl's words, 'The skeptic-and-believer schtick is a match made in heaven!'”

 

Harry sighed. “I guess we're a match made in heaven, then.”

 

Louis stood up to go. “Well let me know what's next then...partner.”

 

Harry pulled his hoodie tightly around his head and leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed. It wasn't so much the idea of working with Louis that was making him nauseous, he thought, although he wasn't exactly giddy about having his intelligence insulted again for views. It was the symbolism of it. It meant his own vision for the show had been ripped away from him. And it meant Jesy was...gone.

 

As the day wore to a close, the whispers that passed around the office confirmed that feeling in a very real way. Cheryl had called Jesy's family in San Jose, who hadn't heard from her either. They'd immediately contacted the LAPD to file a Missing Persons report. Jesy was gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've enjoyed this story, please consider reblogging this Tumblr post! http://mooninherhair.tumblr.com/post/168749096729/the-unexplained-mooninherhair-one-direction  
> And feel free to say Hi to me over there. Thanks!!


	3. Episode 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has just moved to Los Angeles to work for HiveNews Media, and his dark mood from homesickness and his creepy new apartment inspire a brilliant idea for a new paranormal video series. Unfortunately, he finds himself partnered with the biggest ghost skeptic of them all. Will they be able to get along well enough to get the series off the ground? And what's going on with the other unexplained events that are beginning to surround their lives?
> 
> This story is inspired by the series Buzzfeed Unsolved, which pairs a believer and a skeptic to investigate hauntings and unsolved true crimes. It's really awesome, so check it out if you haven't yet. If you're a Buzzfeed fan, you might find some other familiar "faces" floating around this story, too. Thanks for reading!

 

 _Post_.

 

Louis sat back and watched the view counter on Eugene's latest vlog immediately begin to tick upwards. Harry hadn't approached him to do a new episode of _The Unexplained_ since they'd “officially” become co-hosts, and he hadn't had much else to work on. With his dedicated efforts, Eugene's vlog was becoming prolific, and as it grew, so too did the man's head. This latest installment had in fact been nothing more than a compilation of clips of Eugene choosing his outfits in the morning. Louis had to admit, at least: they were nice outfits.

 

“Is that a new Eugene vlog?” asked Zayn, looking over at Louis' monitor. “Shit, I have to to watch it.” He opened a new tab over his animation software and pulled up The Hive.

 

Louis groaned. “Has it ever occurred to you, my friend,” he grabbed the back of Zayn's chair and spun it to face him, “that obsessively watching this man's life through Internet videos _probably_ makes you a less desirable candidate for espousement?”

 

Zayn flushed lightly. “Who said anything about espousing anyone?” He turned back to his computer and stared at it for a few moments before closing out the tab. “Maybe you have a point.”

 

Louis laughed and patted his friend on the back. “I always do.”

 

Zayn rolled his eyes. “You always do.”

 

“Besides, mate,” Louis added, feeling slightly guilty, “I'd say things are starting to spark, innit? Look at the breakthroughs you two have made lately. He knows your name, he had a brief conversation with you while drunk. I'd go so far as to say it's _on.”_

 

“Oh my god,” Zayn tensed up and grabbed Louis' arm. “Look.”

 

His urgent tone blended with a wave of other urgent whispers washing over the office, as everyone turned to stare at the uniformed LAPD officer marching down the main aisle, escorted by a ruggedly important-looking man in a crisp gray suit.

 

“They must be here about Jesy,” murmured Zayn.

 

“You think?”

 

It had only been a matter of time before the cops came to the Hive, Louis thought. He was actually surprised it had taken them this long, but he supposed there were lots of Missing Persons in the greater L.A. area.

 

They continued to watch as the two disappeared down the back corridor.

 

What followed was an extremely tense morning, as various staff members stood up one by one to walk across the office, eyes of the masses on them, and be interviewed somewhere in the depths of the building.

 

Keith was first to go. He gave Louis and Zayn a small smile as he passed, but Louis could easily spot the tension in his mouth. Keith was the most easy-going and joyful person Louis had ever known, and seeing his face the way it had been since Jesy's disappearance was utterly heartbreaking.

 

Some of the women who Jesy had been closest with were next to go after Keith, followed by Eugene, and then Harry. Louis watched his partner walk past, ready to give him a supportive nod, but Harry didn't even glance his way.

 

While Harry was gone, a message popped up on Louis' computer from the intra-office chat system. It was from Cheryl. _You're next. Conference room 2._

 

When Harry reappeared about 20 minutes later, Louis got up and headed into the maze. He was a little sweaty, and probably a little flushed, he thought, although he couldn't imagine why. It's not like he'd done anything or even knew anything.

 

He sat down at the middle of the long conference table, across from the uniform and the suit, trying to smile affably. “Officers,” he nodded.

 

The man in the suit nodded back. “Could you state your name and occupation for the record?”

 

So it was straight in. Louis swallowed. “Louis Tomlinson. Video editor and on-screen personality for HiveNews.”

 

The two cops were looking over a page of notes together, leaving Louis in silence. Silence, a bothersome thing that Louis usually felt compelled to fill.

 

“And yourselves? Mind stating your names for my records?” He immediately regretted it, cursing his uncontrollable urge to use humor as a defense mechanism.

 

To his surprise, the suit looked up and grinned. “Not a problem. Got to make sure your records are in order. I'm Detective Liam Payne, and this is Officer Kendra Washington.”

 

Louis let out a rush of air he hadn't realized he was holding in. “Cheers, nice to meet you both. How can I help?”

 

“Could you tell us about your relationship with Jesy O'Neil?” asked Officer Washington.

 

Louis blinked. “She was my coworker. I guess my friend, to a point. We weren't that close. But her boyfriend, you know, Keith, he's one of my best friends.”

 

The officer nodded grimly. “Tell us about Keith.”

 

Uh-oh, Louis thought. If that was all they wanted to hear from him about Jesy, Keith might have a problem.

 

He launched into much the same flowery praise of Keith that he'd just been thinking earlier in the day. He'd gone on perhaps a bit too long when Detective Payne interrupted.

 

“That's fine, Mr. Tomlinson, thank you.” He was still smiling. “Sounds like he's a great guy.”

 

Louis breathed another sigh of relief. “He is. He definitely is.”

 

“Could you tell us about the last night Jesy was seen? We've heard reports that you were with her?” The detective nodded encouragingly.

 

“We were out drinking. Me, Jesy, Keith, Eugene, and Zayn. My best friend Zayn. Jesy left with Keith and Eugene around one. Eugene was going to drive them home. That's the last I saw. Or heard. Yeah.” He was cracking his knuckles under the table, a nervous habit. When he noticed, he stuck his hands under his thighs to make himself stop.

 

Officer Washington had some follow-up questions about the intoxication levels of the three of them, and Louis answered as best he could. Finally Detective Payne interrupted again with another smile.

 

“That's great, thank you. Just one more thing. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Jesy? Or any reason that she might have wanted to...run away?”

 

 _Hurt Jesy. Hurt. Hurt_. He didn't fancy himself to be a stupid guy, so why was it just occurring to him now that Jesy hadn't simply vanished out of their lives? That there was so much more to it? Infinite possibilities of terror and torture and pain...

 

He rubbed at his temples and took a deep breath, trying to shake his mind free of that darkness.

 

“No. She was wonderful. And she was happy.”

 

“Thank you. You're free to go.”

 

At lunch later that day, after Zayn too had completed an interview, the two friends sat in a heavy silence at the Chipotle around the corner, nibbling dispassionately at their burritos.

 

“He was a fan,” Zayn finally said, apropos of nothing.

 

“Who was a fan of what?”

 

“The detective. Detective Liam Payne?” He stared at Louis expectantly.

 

Louis nodded. “Yes, I'm familiar with his work. What is he a fan of? Detectiving?”

 

Zayn snorted. “The GraFitiZ. Remember? My band? Your passion project?”

 

Louis raised his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

 

“Yeah. He said he's been to all of our gigs. Honestly, he looked a little starstruck to see me.”

 

Louis rolled his eyes. “So _he's_ the fan.”

 

“Stop that. We have at least five or six.”

 

*

 

“Styles. _Styles_. STYLES!”

 

Harry snapped up from his desk where he'd been dead asleep in a lumpy cushion of his own folded arms. “What, what?”

 

It had been another sleepless night at Casa Niall-Style, as Niall had decided to christen their shared apartment. Not that Harry had seen another ghost, or whatever it had been. He actually hadn't seen anything since that first time. But without fail, when he shut out the light each night, the booming would start up again, and he could imagine her standing there at the edge of his bed so vividly that he inevitably turned the light back on and lay with a pillow over his face until daybreak, snoozing occasionally, if he was lucky.

 

It was Louis hovering over him, shuffling his feet almost nervously.

 

“Listen, we...we haven't filmed any more episodes in ages,” he blurted. “And don't get me wrong, I can guess why. I mean, I know you're not doing well, what with...” he nodded vaguely down at Jesy's empty desk. “And I know you weren't in love with the way we...vibed. But we have to keep doing the show, so I really think...we probably ought to have a talk about it all...don't you think?”

 

Harry leaned back heavily and sighed. “Yeah,” he eased out. “We probably do.”

 

The truth was, Harry had enough complete scripts written to fill up several entire seasons of _The Unexplained._ But all things considered, and Louis had summed it up well—if inelegantly, Harry thought—he just hadn't found the heart to film again yet. But Louis was right. They had to.

 

“Cool. So, if you're not busy tonight...”

 

Harry shook his head. “I'm not.” He never was.

 

“My friend Zayn's band,” Louis gestured over his shoulder, “has a gig tonight. I thought maybe you'd like to go? You can invite all your friends if you want.”

 

Niall, Harry thought. And ghost girl, if she was keen.

 

“But maybe you and I head over there early and have a good chat first...like right now...if you think that's okay.”

 

Harry had never seen Louis this hesitant. He must have really done a number on the poor guy with his silent treatment over the last couple of days. He felt slightly guilty. He'd only half-meant to do it.

 

He glanced at his computer clock and shrugged. “I guess so. It is quittin' time.”

 

And just like that, Zayn swept them away in his car to the bar where his band's gig would be, the same bar, they assured Harry, where Zayn's band's gigs always were.

 

Zayn left again to collect gear and other bandmates, and Harry and Louis settled into a booth, each with a pint in front of him. Louis took a deep breath and began.

 

“So I know you weren't the biggest fan of--”

 

“It's insulting to my intelligence!” Harry blurted, not even sure himself where it came from.

 

Louis looked taken aback. “It is? What is?”

 

Harry sighed. “The way you talked to me on the show. Like believing ghosts might exist is literally stupid. Like only someone with half a brain would think they might be real.”

 

Louis looked slightly pained. “No, no, mate. I know you've got...more than half a brain.” He chuckled softly. “I don't think that at all. It's just that...well, I don't believe in them, and I couldn't think of anything else to say or do but speak my mind.”

 

Harry leaned forward. “Okay, but that's exactly it. Why don't you believe in them?”

 

Louis took a slow sip of his beer. “Well, pretty simply, I guess, because actual scientists have said that the laws of physics don't allow for such things to be physically possible. They're just not.” He shrugged. “Not to mention, there's no real evidence. No proof. It's all just people's anecdotal accounts that can easily be explained by other things.”

 

“Okay, right. And don't you hear how everything you just said basically implies that anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron?” Harry was wiggling his leg under the table uncontrollably.

 

Louis squinted, considering this. “Maybe...I guess I can see how it might imply that. But--”

 

“And besides that,” Harry interrupted, “if you want to talk about science, how many times in history have scientists been certain about things that later ended up being proven completely wrong? Like, hello, I'm pretty sure the Earth is round.” He took a deep breath. “And those 'anecdotes' you bring up, do you realize how many of them there are? How many people there are that have had very real experiences that changed their entire lives? Don't you think it's a little insulting to paint them all with the same broad brush as being crazy or whatever?”

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Louis was leaning away and holding up both hands. “Hang on a second. Look, mate, you're trying to have two different arguments at the same time.”

 

Harry narrowed his eyebrows. “Oh, am I?”

 

“Look, I just mean, this is obviously a topic that you're very passionate about, and that's great, but just...can you maybe see that you're getting just a wee touch too excited about it here?”

 

Harry sighed and went in for a long gulp of ale. “Okay. I guess I can concede to that wee touch.”

 

Louis laughed. “Good. Thank you. What I mean is, there's the argument that I'm being insulting to your intelligence. And that's a really important issue to work out. Because I don't want to make you feel that way.”

 

Harry nodded slowly.

 

“And the other argument is just whether or not ghosts exist and whether whatever evidence there is counts or not, and that's a whole other thing. Don't you think?”

 

Harry frowned. “But I mean, the very nature of your belief looks down on anyone with the other belief, so they're not separate issues.”

 

“Maybe they're not. But we have to treat them as if they are, or we're not going to get anywhere.”

 

Harry hated to admit Louis was right. “You're right,” he sighed, and took another drink. “So where do we go from there?”

 

“I think we just have to treat it like any other issue that two people can casually disagree on, you know? You can argue for your side and I can argue for mine, and nobody has to get bent out of shape about it. And the audience can choose their sides and enjoy it. Which, by the way: it's like pretty evenly split right now, going on the comments.”

 

He had to start checking those damn comments. “Okay,” Harry said, beginning to relax a little. “But what's your answer to the other argument? I can't just turn off how I feel. If you say things that make me look stupid, I'll feel stupid.”

 

Louis was cracking his knuckles behind his beer. He took a moment to ponder. “Okay. How about this.” He leaned forward. “What if you and I both try really hard to keep in mind that if people like me maybe, kind of, sort of _do_ question the intelligence of a person who believes in ghosts, that we're only questioning _part_ of their intelligence? Like, of all the things that there are to know and to think and to believe and to be capable of, I'm only just questioning this one little sliver of brain matter? But not the whole brain?”

 

Louis seemed so earnest, in such an out-of-character way, as his blue eyes shimmered expectantly up at Harry in the dim barlight. So blue, even in such dark. Harry felt a smile sliding across his face.

 

“Yeah. That seems fair. You can question this one little sliver,” he tapped the side of his head. “And maybe I'll even get to question a few of yours at some point.”

 

Louis looked like he breathed a sigh of relief and grinned. “Absolutely you can. There's plenty up there to question. And listen, I want you to know, really, that I was so impressed by you the other day.”

 

Harry felt his cheeks get hot. “You were? By what? How gracefully I fell on top of you?”

 

Louis laughed. “That _was_ exquisite. But moreso, how prepared you were, how well-written your script was, and your delivery of it. Mate, you sound so natural, and you really look like a professional journalist in front of the camera. I was kind of jealous.”

 

Now Harry was sure his cheeks were red. He opened his mouth to reply but before he could get a word out, a gleeful whoop from behind interrupted him.

 

It was Niall arriving to join them. Harry grinned and looked on as his only friend and his new partner got to know each other, feeling a little bit lighter than he had in ages.

 

Before long, Ellie had shown up, along with Keith and Eugene, to everyone else's slight surprise. Zayn's band took the stage and Harry was delighted to find that they not only didn't suck, but that he was enjoying the hell out of it.

 

When the band finished and came to join the group, yet another figure squeezed into the booth out of nowhere. It was Detective Liam Payne.

 

Harry found himself staring a little too overtly at the detective, wondering just exactly how appropriate it was that he would be socializing with the very people he was investigating. The detective caught him staring before he could look away.

 

“I know what you're thinking.”

 

Harry raised his eyebrows and tried to feign innocence. “You do?”

 

“I took myself off the case.”

 

“You what?”

 

“I took myself off the case!” the detective shouted over the din of the bar.

 

“Wow. Why?”

 

The detective chuckled, a huge grin filling his face and his eyes crinkling to tiny slits. “For exactly the reason you were just thinking. Conflict of interest. That it wouldn't be very professional of me to stay on a case involving people I know outside of work.”

 

Harry ducked his head in guilt. “Right, okay. But you don't know any of us...do you?”

 

Liam nodded over at Zayn. “I've been following his band for years. I never miss a show.” He gave Harry a sly wink and then got up to try his luck on the other side of the table.

 

Harry leaned back against the hard wood of the booth and stared around at his company: Niall, a roommate he could just barely call a friend, so far; who was chatting up Ellie, a coworker he was kind of maybe becoming close to; a questionable new partner; a man in grief over his missing girlfriend, trying to stay brave but failing; the arrogant friend on his side comforting him half-heartedly; Zayn and the members of his pretty good but pretty unsuccessful band; and a not-inappropriate-by-a-hair police detective, straining to get Zayn's attention.

 

It was a motley crew of revellers, that was for sure. But Harry felt a warmth there among them, a warmth that was almost something a little like home.

 

*

 

“You won't even give me a hint?” Louis whined.

 

Harry sighed. “Like I said, it's better if I tell you everything for the first time while we're on camera.”

 

“I know, I know. And I agree. It means my reactions will be more genuine and of the moment. But I still think you can at least give me the basics. I mean, just a nutshell. A caption, even!”

 

Harry laughed. They were on a bus headed up to Modesto and had been for hours. Ellie, unfortunately, Louis, had thought, wasn't along for the ride, as Cheryl had decided they would act more authentically if they were completely alone from then on. So far, her absence hadn't made for too awkward of a ride, and he and Harry had managed to keep up a steady stream of conversation ever since L.A.

 

“Okay, okay,” Harry relented. “It's a place called Molly House.”

 

“Sounds adorable,” Louis interjected.

 

“Far from it. Basically it's a house where everyone who's ever lived there has been terrorized by a demon who presents itself in the form of a little girl. Named Molly.”

 

Louis' eyebrows were up to his hairline. That actually sounded horrifying, although there wasn't a chance he was going to say so. “A demon, eh? So what's that, like, a really big ghost?”

 

Harry turned in his seat. “No. It's a completely different thing. See, a ghost is actually a real human person who died and has come back. Or never left. Whatever. And a demon is not human at all, it's a whole other kind of creature. A creature from Hell, who is pure evil embodied and wants nothing more than to pull human souls down into its pit of misery.”

 

Louis whistled. “Holy fuck, that's dark.”

 

“I know. That's why I hired Ralph to meet us there. It's a whole different thing than ghosts. We're out of our depth.”

 

“Well, I've been out of my depth from the beginning. Wait, who's Ralph?”

 

“He's a paranormal expert from San Francisco. He's meeting us at the house. Hopefully, I don't know, he can keep us from being pulled down into the bowels of Hell. Or something.”

 

Louis looked at his co-host. He seemed to be actually on edge, eyes darting everywhere.

 

“Mate, are you all right? You seem a bit high-strung today.”

 

Harry shook his head slowly and then started nodding. “Honestly, I'm pretty scared about this one. Like, actually pretty terrified.”

 

And he wasn't exaggerating, Louis could tell. “Just because it's a...demon?”

 

“Well, yes and no. Can I—do you promise not to make fun of me?”

 

That sounded literally impossible. “I promise to try. At least while the cameras are still off.”

 

Harry laughed. “Fair enough.” And he launched into a tale of his new apartment and some creepy little girl who he'd seen hanging around at the foot of his bed.

 

Louis could see that he was genuinely scared, but the “apparition” had a far too-logical explanation and he couldn't bite his tongue. Story of his life.

 

“Hypnagogic hallucinations,” he said matter-of-factly.

 

“What?”

 

“They're things that happen on the threshold of consciousness, like right when you're waking up or right when you're falling asleep. They can be things you see, or things you hear, or even smell, but they feel one hundred percent completely real, just like a drug hallucination or whatever.”

 

Harry pondered this for a while. Louis waited and wondered whether he was going to get mad.

 

“Yeah, okay. I mean, maybe I can buy that. But the booming sound that happens is always when I'm fully, like, wide-awake, before I've slept at all. So it doesn't explain that.”

 

“No,” Louis sighed quietly. “No, it doesn't explain that.”

 

Another couple of hours passed and they arrived at the Molly House, just as dusk was falling around them. Ralph, the supposed paranormal expert, was there waiting.

 

It was a small, unassuming house in the middle of a perfectly ordinary suburban street. Louis didn't see how anyone could possibly find it scary, but he noticed the tension in Harry's face as they walked through the door. Furniture, stuffed animals, and paintings filled the house as if a family still lived there, instead of having run screaming out onto the streets in the middle of the night never to return again, as Harry had assured him was the case.

 

Ralph was on a tight schedule, so they were going to film the flashlight tour with him first and do the storytelling later, all before spending the night in sleeping bags on the floor of the living room. Harry had remained awfully quiet when Louis tried to tease him about that decision earlier.

 

When their various handheld cameras and body cameras were rolling, Ralph was quick and business-like as he explained the rules for contacting demons. He told them where the hottest spots of activity in the house were, and showed them how they would use a flashlight to get in touch. He unscrewed the lid until it was right on the line between being in or out of contact with the batteries inside. A mere tap of your finger could make it switch on or off.

 

Louis' eyebrows were through the roof. “ _That's_ how we're going to get in contact with demons? Are you sure that's not just how we're going to get in contact with a light breeze?”

 

Harry let out a kind of part-laugh, part-moan.

 

They turned off all the house lights and set off on the tour. The first stop was the kitchen, where Ralph told them an enormous amount of demony activity had taken place over the years. He went in first and set his special flashlight on the counter.

 

“That's it, that spot right there.”

 

Louis laughed. “This exact spot on the counter? What, would the demon come in and like, cool off their mug of tea before they were ready to drink it?”

 

Harry laughed again, though his eyes were going kind of crazy.

 

Ralph was unfazed. “Give it a try, ask if anyone wants to speak with you and the light will go on for a positive response.”

 

Harry stepped tentatively closer to the counter. “Does anyone here want to speak with us?”

 

Nothing happened. Harry looked at Louis helplessly.

 

Louis grinned and stepped past Harry, kneeling at eye level with the flashlight. “Hey, demon!”

 

Harry grimaced.

 

“Hey, demon, do you want to talk to us?”

 

Nothing.

 

“Hey, little demon girl Molly, wanna play? Do you like us?”

 

Harry let out something like a wail. Still nothing.

 

Louis shrugged. “Do you hate us?”

 

And with that, the light flicked instantly on, and Harry was screaming and racing out of the kitchen as Louis dropped to the floor laughing.

 

With a little coaxing, Harry was willing to continue on the rest of the tour, which, mercifully, for his sake, produced no further interesting results. Ralph left, and they set up a camera in the living room to film the storytelling.

 

The story had everything, from shadow people, to homicidal tendencies produced inside the house, to plates flying around and breaking on people's heads, to waking up and finding a lifeless body lying in bed with you, to, of course, the recurring presence of the little girl Molly. Family after family had moved into the house and moved out again months later, having barely kept it together, if they had kept it together at all.

 

Louis wise-cracked his way through the whole thing, but inwardly he was filled with an awe bordering on fear at the fact that all that stuff had happened right where they were sitting. Apparently it was very well-documented.

 

Harry managed to get through the story confidently, but when they switched the camera off, the terror washed over his face again. He looked like a shell of a person. Louis felt kind of bad about how hard he had laughed.

 

“You know it just turned on from like, the vibrations of me talking near it, don't you?”

 

Harry stared at the floor. “Sure, Louis. I'm sure that's all it was.”

 

*

 

Harry's hands shook as he tried to unroll his sleeping bag across the living room floor. He couldn't believe he was doing this. And he hadn't even _agreed_ to do it, it was his own idea. Their cameras were rolling again and he was trying to look less scared, but he was sure it was in vain.

 

He looked over at his partner who was lying back in his pajamas on his already set-up bed, flipping through a magazine as if he hadn't a care in the world.

 

He must have been staring too long, for Louis glanced up at him. “What's up, buddy? Hanging in there?”

 

Harry gestured to switch off their respective cameras, and Louis obeyed, looking back at Harry curiously when he had done so. “What's going on?”

 

Harry let out a long, wavering sigh and collapsed on his wonky sleeping back, rolling over to face Louis. “I'm just so-I've never felt like this before in my life. I'm a fucking wreck. Tell me, honestly, I'm begging you, you must be at least the tiniest bit freaked out?”

 

Louis reached over and gave him a quick pat on the shoulder. “Nope. You're not going to get me, cameras on or cameras off.”

 

Harry growled and swatted at his pillow. “You're fucking impossible. You're so full of it. There's no way you're not feeling this. Unless _you're_ a demon too, I know you must be feeling something.”

 

Louis yawned. “I am feeling something. I'm feeling sleepy! Turn the cameras back on and let's get this over with.”

 

Scowling, Harry did as he was told. Cameras rolling and all lights off except their flashlights, he lay flat on the sleeping bag, eyes open as wide as they could get.

 

He didn't know what he believed: whether he was feeling this way because of some actual presence in this place, or whether it was his own mind fucking with him; whether a demon had actually turned on a light, or whether the whole concept was a cheap parlor trick. Whatever the case, adrenaline was still shooting around his body and showing no sign of fading soon. If only he could just sleep...

 

He turned off his light, but the darkness instantly threatened to tear him apart. He turned it back on and looked over at Louis.

 

“You know what? I have to cuddle up. Sorry, I'm not even sorry.” He began scooting closer to his partner.

 

Louis shrugged and waved him over. “Not a problem, mate, come on. I'll protect you from the big, bad, tiny little demon girl.”

 

Harry scooted until he was close enough to feel Louis body heat, but not quite touching. It felt better...but only remotely.

 

They lay in silence for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. Harry heard Louis' breathing steady as he drifted off, and the lack of another conscious human in the room was enough to make him absolutely lose it.

 

He sat up, grabbed Louis by both shoulders, and shook him awake. “Louis! Louis!”

 

“I'm up! Whoa, there.” Louis sat up. “Did she come out? Did you see her?” He almost sounded like he thought it was possible, but Harry knew better.

 

“I can't take it, mate. I can't take another second. I've got to get out of here.”

 

Louis raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? Are you sure?” He started to get up. “Be sure. Because you don't want to regret giving up later.”

 

Harry looked down at his pillow and considered for a second. “Nope. No way. I'm done. We gotta go.”

 

He leaped up, stuffed his cameras into his bag, and threw his sleeping bag over his shoulder. “Come on!”

 

“Yep, got it. I'm right behind you.” Louis threw his own things together at what seemed like a compassionately fast speed, and the two of them rushed out the front door, leaving the pillows scattered behind them.

 

Harry walked all the way to the sidewalk, then into the road, then to the other side of the street before he stopped and sat down on the grass of the median. He stared blankly at the Molly House, trying to catch his breath. He stared and stared, until he was seeing nothing at all.

 

Then it dawned on him, suddenly, snapping back to reality, that it was the middle of the night, and they couldn't exactly sleep out on the streets of a residential Modesto neighborhood.

 

“Shit. Louis? What are we going to do?” He whirled around in a panic, finding Louis standing right behind him.

 

Louis placed a hand gently on top of Harry's head. His other was holding his phone, watching the screen. “Uber's on it's way. Two minutes. A Holiday Inn is less than ten minutes from here. We're good.”

 

He was an angel. And he was right. Almost instantly, they were piling into the backseat of a car and being whisked away. When they turned off the Molly House road, Harry felt like he could finally breathe.

 

They climbed into twin beds in a cozy, generic hotel room, where Harry, for the first time in the United States, slept until morning.

 

To say it was a bit ironic that the most terrifying night of his life had actually ended in sleep was an understatement, he chuckled to himself as he fiddled with the coffee maker in the morning. He brewed a pot and then sat at the table in the window, sipping away and gazing outside. Sometimes. Sometimes he was gazing at his sleeping hero, wondering when he would awake.

 

It wasn't long. “Morning,” yawned Louis, stretching and rolling over to face Harry. “Are you alive?”

 

Harry smiled. “Only thanks to you.”

 

Louis raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “You're damn right. What time is it?”

 

Louis picked up his phone off the nightstand and swiped at it. After a moment, his face fell completely out if its smile. “No.”

 

Harry frowned. “Demon on your phone?”

 

Louis dropped the phone on the bed carelessly and looked up at Harry. “They found Jesy's body.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAI, DEMONS!
> 
> If you've enjoyed this story, please consider reblogging this Tumblr post! http://mooninherhair.tumblr.com/post/168749096729/the-unexplained-mooninherhair-one-direction  
> And feel free to say Hi to me over there. Thanks!!


	4. Episode 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has just moved to Los Angeles to work for HiveNews Media, and his dark mood from homesickness and his creepy new apartment inspire a brilliant idea for a new paranormal video series. Unfortunately, he finds himself partnered with the biggest ghost skeptic of them all. Will they be able to get along well enough to get the series off the ground? And what's going on with the other unexplained events that are beginning to surround their lives?
> 
> This story is inspired by the series Buzzfeed Unsolved, which pairs a believer and a skeptic to investigate hauntings and unsolved true crimes. It's really awesome, so check it out if you haven't yet. If you're a Buzzfeed fan, you might find some other familiar "faces" floating around this story, too. Thanks for reading!

At the sound of yet another whimper from somewhere behind him in the office, Louis yanked off the glasses he wore while editing and rubbed his eyes aggressively for the millionth time that day. Going through clip after clip of Jesy's smiling face to make the memorial video that Cheryl had demanded was draining the life out of him, and he wasn't the only one working on it. All day long, staff members randomly popped up in tears and ran across the room to the toilets or out into the sunshine. That was, of those staff that had had it in them to even show up to work over the last couple of days. Keith, for one, hadn't been in yet. Neither had Harry.

 

After reading the text from Liam, Harry and Louis had sprung for plane tickets back to the city, neither one of them in the mood for dealing with a long bus ride under the circumstances. Louis had caught his co-host crying into his hoodie several times on the way back, and they had exchanged few words before getting in cabs and going their separate ways.

 

He stared at the paused image of Jesy on his screen: she was hugging a little girl she'd met in a mall doing some fashion challenge she'd invented, grinning, glowing.

 

Louis was in denial, he supposed. Or shock. He didn't know what it meant that he hadn't cried. Couldn't cry. Maybe he never would. Whatever the official psychiatric term was for what he was feeling, he knew at the very least that he felt like shit.

 

He decided to take a break from the memorial video for a while and go back to the demon house footage that he was almost finished with. Harry had in absentia emailed him the outline he wanted Louis to follow, though it was far less detailed than usual, and contained phrases like “Fill in some kind of transition here” and “Just do whatever makes sense here.” Louis didn't blame him.

 

Cheryl, who had taken a look at some of the footage the day before, had called him into her office with a new critique: not enough bickering.

 

“That's what everyone loved about episode 2,” she'd whined. “That's why the views quadrupled. Frankly, you two could make a video about a pile of dog shit and people would eat it up with a spoon as long as you were keeping up that same level of banter.” Cheryl had a way with words. “I don't know what the hell happened in that demon house, but you weren't going in on him hard enough. Fix it.”

 

Now, splicing together the storytelling segment, Louis could kind of see what she meant. His jokes were weak and far between, and if he zoomed in, he could make out an expression of, dare he say it, concern and care on his own face.

 

He had barely even challenged any of the outlandish claims Harry had made about the Molly House. A guy that lived there had developed homicidal feelings towards his wife. “That's not what you want,” he'd replied. Hello?! How about, “So do millions of men every day, that's why there's an entire department of the police devoted to domestic violence.” When you put it all together, which he was literally doing, the demon-believer side was coming out easily ahead. He needed to raise his game. For science.

 

A thud sounded next to him and he looked up with a start. Zayn had just dropped the compact he had been using to check his eyeliner and was scrambling to hide it behind his monitor. Louis supposed he had been crying.

 

“What's up, bros?” It was Eugene, standing in their desk aisle for probably the first time in history, holding out one fist to each of them to receive bumps.

 

“Oh, hey, Eugene. I didn't see you there,” said Zayn, miraculously not stumbling over the complicated sentence.

 

Louis found himself smirking, the closest thing to a smile that he could remember managing in days.

 

“You just getting in, mate?” he asked, slamming his fist into Eugene's harder than necessary. That was always fun.

 

Eugene lowered his voice and bent over slightly between them. “I was at the police station. I guess they've been calling people in for a new round of interviews now that they...found her.”

 

Jesy had been discovered by some hikers down a slope in Runyon Canyon Park, something like a 20-minute walk from where she'd last been seen. Until today, that was all anyone at the office knew so far.

 

“Did you...find anything out? What happened?”

 

Eugene shook his head. “The interview was basically identical to the one I had here. I couldn't get a read on what they thought happened. But then I ran into your buddy in the hallway,” he put his hand on Zayn's shoulder, “and he gave me the deets.”

 

Zayn leaned back in his chair slightly, as if to be closer to the hand. “You mean Liam? He's not my buddy, I wouldn't say. I mean, he's a cool guy, we got to know each other pretty well the other night at my show, but--”

 

“Bro. Read the room. Not the issue right now,” snapped Louis. “What did he tell you?” he asked Eugene.

 

“He's not on the case anymore, right, so he didn't know a lot. But he said it's foul play. For sure.”

 

Louis felt sick all over again. They'd all suspected it. It had seemed unlikely that Jesy would walk in the opposite direction of her house to an abandoned mountain trail in the middle of the night by herself for some jaunty exercise, and maybe just, whoops, fell off a cliff or something. But having it confirmed still felt like hot blades stabbing between his ribs.

 

“Fuck,” he said. There wasn't a lot else to say.

 

“Is that all my 'buddy' told you?” added Zayn.

 

“He just said something about head injuries that wouldn't be consistent with a fall. That's it.”

 

He straightened up and started to back away but froze suddenly. He put his hand back on Zayn's shoulder.

 

“Before I forget, Zayn. Let's grab a drink tonight? You and me?”

 

Louis watched his friend's face contort through an entire spectrum of emotions in an instant before he squeaked, “Yeah. Cool. Cool. Text me the deets.”

 

When Eugene was gone, Louis turned to Zayn.

 

“Congratulations.”

 

Zayn blinked at him.

 

“Your dream guy just asked you out on your first date right after telling you your mutual friend died from having her head bashed in.”

 

Zayn blinked some more.

 

Louis shrugged and turned back to _The Unexplained_.

 

*

 

The door creaked open slowly with the rusty moan of old hinges. Harry rolled over grumpily to face the intruder.

 

“Buddy...?” said Niall slowly and gently, like he was talking to a child with a boo-boo. He stepped into the room. “You've been in here for three days.”

 

Harry pulled the pillow back over his face.

 

Niall shoved Harry's legs over and sat down on the foot of the bed. “Have you eaten anything at all?”

 

Harry thought about it. He'd had some Mentos that he'd found in his desk drawer yesterday. He couldn't remember anything else.

 

“Come on, take that pillow off your face and see what I made you.” Niall patted the pillow.

 

Harry groaned and threw it onto the floor. Niall was holding a tray of steaming soup and what looked like a grilled cheese. The smell hit him at once, sending his stomach into a tailspin.

 

He supposed he shouldn't let his roommate's efforts go to waste. He squirmed to sit up and made grabby hands at the food.

 

Niall's face lit up. “Are you going to eat it?”

 

“Yes, I'm going to eat it,” Harry snapped, surprised at the unrecognizable gravelly tone of his own voice. He realized he hadn't uttered a word since the previous morning, when he'd cried over the phone to both his mother and then his sister for several hours.

 

Niall pulled the tray away from Harry. “That's great, my man. What about coming out into the living room and eating it there? I bet you've forgotten what the rest of our lovely Casa even looks like.”

 

Harry frowned. “I've been to the loo.”

 

Niall laughed. “Oh, yes, of course, I forgot. The _loo_ ,” he mocked, standing up and backing out of the room. “Come on! This way!”

 

Harry groaned again and untangled himself from his sheet. At this point, he was committed to eating that food. One smell and there was no going back. It was the most drive he'd had in days.

 

He shuffled after Niall into the living room and collapsed onto the couch in much the same position he'd been in his bed. “There. You happy?”

 

Niall set the tray on the coffee table and settled into the ripped-up armchair. “Not happy to see you like this. But happy to see you out of bed, yeah!”

 

Harry sat up slightly, pulled the tray into his lap, and virtually inhaled the soup without looking up as Niall watched, smiling.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

 

Harry set the spoon down and looked at his roommate clearly for the first time. Niall's face was lined with genuine worry and what looked a lot like love.

 

“I guess I don't really need to talk about... _it_ ,” he replied. “My family heard pretty much everything there is to say about it from me yesterday. They were great actually.” He took a bite of the grilled cheese. “I mean, I'm going to be okay,” he said through a mouthful. “I know I am.”

 

Niall leaned back in the armchair. “I know you are too, dude. But it's good to hear you say so. You have to get back to work soon or they'll deport you, right?”

 

Harry snorted. “Something like that.” He took another huge bite.

 

“Speaking of work,” Niall said, sliding his laptop off the table next to him and spinning it around to face Harry. “I just watched your guys' latest video. It is so freaking funny.”

 

Harry squinted at the screen. “Molly House? It's up?” He was surprised to find himself feel nothing at being reminded of that demon-infested hell-hole. Jesy's loss, he supposed, put some things into perspective.

 

“Oh, man, when that flashlight turned on and you _freaked the fuck out_! I've never laughed that hard in my life!”

 

He thought he had heard someone bellowing a little while ago. “Oh, ha ha, dumb little Harry got scared by a flashlight.” He swallowed the last of the sandwich and shoved the tray back onto the coffee table.

 

“Naw, dude, I would have done the exact same thing. No way would I have lasted in that place as long as you did. You guys are seriously brave.”

 

It was a descriptor that Harry had never considered for himself, but maybe Niall had a point. He wiggled up a little higher on the couch and leaned closer toward his friend.

 

“What are the comments like?”

 

Niall whipped the laptop back toward himself and began scrolling down. “Heh. So many people are saying exactly what I just said.” He scrolled more, furrowing his brow slightly. “It looks like _some_ people think Louis went too easy on you in this one, whatever that means.”

 

Harry thought about it. Looking back, he had made some rather wild claims that Louis had just nodded along with.

 

“Hah!” Niall laughed. “Listen to this one. 'Why does the ghost-believing guy laugh so hard when the little guy contradicts him?' You do, you laugh so hard!”

 

Harry shrugged, feeling a little defensive. “Well, he's pretty funny, isn't he? I don't think I'm the only one laughing.”

 

Niall raised his eyebrows. “No, he is funny. I don't know if he's _that_ funny, but he's funny. I actually had a great time with him the other night. He's good people.”

 

The other night. It felt like a million nights ago.

 

“Yeah, I noticed you really hit it off with Zayn, too. You guys must have been talking about music?”

 

Niall closed the laptop. “Yeah, his band is great. Sure, we talked about music a little. Not a lot.”

 

“Didn't you tell him about your own music?”

 

Niall's eyebrows shot up. “My own music?”

 

“Yeah. I can't believe I've forgotten to tell you. I heard you playing the other...whenever it was. Just after I moved in. You're really good, you should play more often.”

 

Niall looked baffled. “I...can't believe you heard me. Well, never mind about that. It's just a little hobby. No big deal.”

 

Harry was just about to insist, when there was a knock on the door. He quickly pulled the couch blanket over himself to hide his underwear. “Who the hell...”

 

Niall jumped up. “That'll be my date!”

 

“Your date!”

 

Niall rushed over and swung open the door. “Hey, you!”

 

“Hey, yourself!” came the singsong voice of Ellie from the hall. “Hurry up, the movie starts like, now. Hey, Harry!” she called over Niall's head. “Take a damn shower and come to work tomorrow, will you?”

 

*

The strap of Louis' overstuffed bag dug into his shoulder and he swung it awkwardly to the other one as he jogged through LAX toward his gate. Boarding had almost come to a close and he made it onto the plane in the nick of time. He shuffled down the narrow aisle until he came to row 28, wondering for an instant why Harry wasn't there before realizing he was looking right at him.

 

His co-host had several days of patchy beard growth, and his normally untamed hair was being slicked back tightly by a bandana and a pair of over-sized sunglasses. His cheekbones seemed more defined, as if he might have lost a couple of pounds; and there was a new set to his jawline that made him look a year or two older. If it weren't for the grief that had undoubtedly inspired these changes, Louis would have said they suited him quite well.

 

“Cheers, thanks for waiting for me,” Louis said through a friendly smile, hoisting his bag into the overhead compartment. He sat down and gave Harry a playful jab on the knee.

 

Harry looked at him slowly. “Sorry about that. I get a little anxious about flying and I just like to get in my seat and try to settle in and forget where I am.”

 

Louis gave a quick, gentle pat to the area he had just jabbed. “No worries, mate. Here I am. I made it anyway.”

 

He had made it, but no thanks to Harry for making the last minute plans. Louis and Zayn had been almost all the way to the office when Harry had sent a text telling him they were booked on this flight. He had had to jump out of Zayn's car and get an Uber back home to grab some more things, and then get another Uber to the airport.

 

“So what's in Hawaii, anyway? You didn't even tell me.”

 

“The _Princess Ann_!” said Harry triumphantly, swiping into his phone and holding up a picture of a large ship. “The world's most haunted steamship.”

 

Louis studied the picture of a pretty ordinary-looking old boat. “Yeah. Wow. That...looks haunted as fuck.”

 

Harry laughed. “Well, it's more haunted on the inside.” He put his phone away. “Anyway, more than anything I just wanted to be somewhere else for a minute. You know? I couldn't sleep last night, and the hours were passing, and the closer it got to time to go to work, the more I was dreading it. So I looked at my list of haunted places and...yeah, Hawaii sounded good. I think we could use some time away...don't you think?” He was peering up at Louis a little sheepishly, as if he was afraid Louis would bite.

 

Now that he was on the plane and his sweat from hauling ass to get there had started to evaporate, it dawned on Louis that Harry was exactly right.

 

“It sounds damn good, mate. Damn good.” He clicked his seatbelt shut and wiggled deeper into his seat. “So what's the deal with this ship? Did you call them up in the middle of the night and book out the entire thing?”

 

Harry snickered. “No. It's got a lot of public areas, like restaurants, ballrooms, decks, and a swimming pool, and we can tour all of those after hours. And then most of the ship is actually a hotel, and booking that was no problem because the most haunted cabin room is actually in disuse. Too many guests complained about stuff happening in there, so they shut it down. We'll actually be the first people to sleep in there in decades.”

 

“Ah, so it's another ghost overnighter, then, is it? Think you'll make it until morning this time?”

 

“I sure think so, because I'm freaking exhausted. I was at the office at like 7 am to pack up all the cameras and stuff.” He yawned as if on cue. “You don't mind, do you, if I try to doze off for the flight?”

 

Louis found himself yawning, too. “I think I might join you.”

 

They must have both needed the rest, because over five hours later, Louis found himself peering out of his heavy-lidded eyes and right at Harry's chest. His head was resting on Harry's shoulder, and Harry's head was leaning on top of his own. If the shooting pain in the side of his neck was anything to go by, they'd been in this position for quite some time.

 

Before they knew it, they were in a taxi with the windows rolled down, cruising across Honolulu, soupy-hot air pouring in and making their hair frizz. Something about the humidity, the thick sea-salt smell, or just the change of scenery was making both of their hearts soar. It felt like another world. Like another chance. Another life.

 

Louis turned to grin at Harry, who he found grinning right back, before they both returned to gazing out their windows the rest of the way to the _Princess Ann_.

 

The ship, it turned out, was absolutely enormous in person. The architecture and decoration on the inside was gorgeous and straight out of the roaring '20s. Louis was impressed and felt a sneaking gratitude towards Harry for getting him to come here.

 

They had to wait until closing time to shoot anything in the public areas of the ship, so they set up in an empty ballroom to get the storytelling segment out of the way first. As Harry was fiddling with some of the sound equipment, Louis decided he had to broach the potentially touchy subject before it was too late.

 

“I don't know if Cheryl talked to you, or if you read the comments on Molly House, but I just want to warn you that I have to kind of--”

 

“Insult the shit out of that one sliver of my intelligence?” Harry grinned. “Yeah, I heard. The vultures want more of my blood.”

 

Louis relaxed. “So you're cool with it? I mean, you've got to just try and think of it as funny. It's for entertainment. It's not personal.”

 

Harry clicked the camera into place on top of the tripod. “I'm cool, trust me. Maybe it sounds weird, but I feel like I've grown up a lot recently. I can take it.”

 

“Good. Because I'm going to really give it to you. Hard.” Louis waggled his eyebrows at Harry who immediately, of course, cracked up.

 

After the storytelling, during which Louis had indeed given it to Harry hard, they went outside on one of the decks to get some exterior shots before the sun went down. Harry was spinning around filming the sky.

 

“This is an incredible sunset. I'm really glad we came out here when we did.”

 

“Well, you better enjoy it. Because it's the last one you're ever going to see.”

 

Harry laughed as they both settled in to lean against the railing, watching through silent smiles until the sun sank completely away.

 

*

 

“Oh, you are going to hate this,” said Louis, standing in front of Harry and peering through the doorway of their haunted cabin room. “You are not going to like this one bit.”

 

He kept his handheld camera pointed back at his co-host to catch his reaction as he followed Louis into the room.

 

“Oh, Jesus. Oh, man,” groaned Harry as he stepped inside.

 

The room was in complete disrepair. Lighting fixtures dangled loosely. Broken floorboards stuck up in places. Water stains darkened patches all over the walls and ceilings. The duvet on the queen bed looked like it hadn't been updated since the '50s. Loose tiles scattered the bathroom floor. And a thick layer of dust coated every surface.

 

“I hate this. This is so creepy.”

 

Louis chuckled. “Are you just afraid of anything that's old?”

 

They had just gotten done touring the other hot spots of the ship: an old kitchen galley, one of the large dining areas, and, worst of all, the bowels of the ship, where dozens of soldiers had died when the ship had been commandeered for battle during World War II. Harry had used his new thermal camera to try and catch some apparitions, but they hadn't managed to attract anything. He was actually growing concerned that they might not have enough interesting footage to use in the episode.

 

“When I told the manager on the phone that we wanted to sleep in here, he told me we were complete idiots,” Harry said, sitting down gingerly on a corner of the bed.

 

“Tell us something we don't already know,” Louis grinned, camera still focused on Harry. Harry swatted at it.

 

“Hey, let's--” he gestured for the cameras to go off, and they both tapped some switches and set their cameras down.

 

“What's up?” Louis hit the other corner of the bed with his hand and watched the dust fly up and swirl around, before shrugging and sitting down anyway.

 

“Do you think we got enough good stuff out there? Nothing really happened.”

 

“Sure, it was fine. Lots of good creaks and bangs down there. Not to mention that bird! That sure produced some delightful squeals out of you.”

 

Harry frowned. “But it wasn't a ghost-bird, and that's what we're supposed to be here to capture.”

 

“We're supposed to capture ghost-birds?”

 

Harry collapsed back onto the bed sending dust everywhere, but he was smiling. “You know what I mean. I know you aren't ever going to believe any of the 'evidence' we get is real anyway, but if we don't get something, there isn't even an episode to make.”

 

Louis lay back next to him. “Mate, it's HiveNews. It doesn't matter. Like Cheryl said, we could film a pile of dog shit and make jokes about it and it would get millions of views.”

 

Harry rolled onto his side and looked at Louis. “I know. But I just—I want to hold myself to a higher standard than that. I don't care what she says, and I don't care if— _people_ don't believe in the supernatural or whatever. I want to make something that matters. I want to produce real journalism.”

 

Louis blinked at him. “Mate. I hate to break it to you. But that's not going to happen at the Hive.”

 

Harry sighed. “I have to believe it can, or there's no reason for me to be here. What makes you so sure there's no room for change?”

 

Louis took a deep breath. “Well...you know Zayn's band?” And he launched into his entire two-year history at the Hive; all the reviews he'd written of The GraFitiZ and other local bands; how he hustled for them on the phone with bars all over town trying to get them better gigs; how he'd reviewed albums for his school newspapers back in England, where he'd dreamed of becoming a real part of the music world; and how, as the actual news side of the Hive shrank every day, Cheryl had shut down his ideas at every turn.

 

Harry listened with both awe and sadness. “I had no idea. I thought you just edited videos and made snarky comments.”

 

Louis laughed. “Well, that's what's on my business cards. But hey, thanks to you, now I'm a top on-camera personality, star of the Hive's hottest new series.”

 

Harry gave him a shove. “Hey, I'm the star.”

 

“You wish.”

 

“Are you actually glad to be a part of...this?” Harry gestured at the mess all around them.

 

“It's like you said. I want to make something that matters, too. And making a name for ourselves, through whatever avenue: ghosts, dog shit...it's a way to get there. And so, yeah. Thank you for making this show.”

 

Harry stared down at the bedspread. “And you have to thank Jesy, too.”

 

“I thank her every second of the day,” Louis whispered. Harry wasn't sure, but he thought he saw his co-host blink back tears.

 

They continued to lay there on the dusty bed talking for hours, completely forgetting about cameras and ghosts. It turned out they had a lot more in common than they had ever considered: They loved a lot of the same bands and had actually been to the same show once in Manchester when they were teenagers. They had both loved writing ever since they were little, when Louis had made comic books and Harry had made newspapers of the events of his neighborhood. They both loved to sing but never did it in public, only in the shower. They both had sisters, and they both loved their mothers more than anything in the known universe.

 

They talked for so long that the night deepened and exhaustion crept up on them, winning out and hitting them both with sleep before they could even fight it.

 

The next thing Harry knew, light was sneaking in through the dirty porthole windows, and he was waking up to feel Louis' arm wrapped snugly around his middle.

 

He didn't dare move, but stared around at the room that no longer looked remotely scary. It occurred to him that this was only the second night in the United States that he had slept through until morning, and that since no ghosts or demons had appeared this time, the only common denominator was Louis. He smiled and closed his eyes again, drifting back into a light doze and staying there until Louis squeezed him firmly on the hip.

 

“Good morning.”

 

Harry slowly rolled over to face him, stretching slightly and pretending he'd only just woken up. “Mmm, g'morning.”

 

“Comfortable?” Louis was grinning at him.

 

Harry blinked sleepily. “Very. Who knew sleeping in your clothes on a hundred year old blanket covered in dust could be so luxurious?”

 

Louis chuckled. “I don't want to break your reverie, but I feel I must point out...” he nodded at their cameras scattered around the foot of the bed. “We may have bungled this one slightly.”

 

Harry tried, but he couldn't find a single part of himself that cared. He shrugged. “Any suggestions?”

 

Louis' eyes sparkled. “I might have a couple of ideas.”

 

In a flash, they had cued up the cameras and were filming a series of staged ghost visitations: Harry would stand brushing his teeth in the bathroom while Louis would tap on the counter just out of the frame to make the toothpaste tube jump into the sink. Or Louis would stand innocently peering out a porthole and Harry would pour some juice on the wall above him out of frame so it would drip down looking like blood. They knew they probably wouldn't be able to use any of it, but they were laughing their asses off, and nothing but that really seemed to matter at all anymore.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Jesy O'Neil! 
> 
> If you've enjoyed this story, please consider reblogging this Tumblr post! http://mooninherhair.tumblr.com/post/168749096729/the-unexplained-mooninherhair-one-direction  
> And feel free to say Hi to me over there. Thanks!!


	5. Episode 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has just moved to Los Angeles to work for HiveNews Media, and his dark mood from homesickness and his creepy new apartment inspire a brilliant idea for a new paranormal video series. Unfortunately, he finds himself partnered with the biggest ghost skeptic of them all. Will they be able to get along well enough to get the series off the ground? And what's going on with the other unexplained events that are beginning to surround their lives?
> 
> This story is inspired by the series Buzzfeed Unsolved, which pairs a believer and a skeptic to investigate hauntings and unsolved true crimes. It's really awesome, so check it out if you haven't yet. If you're a Buzzfeed fan, you might find some other familiar "faces" floating around this story, too. Thanks for reading!

“Fancy seeing you here, stranger.” Louis peered up at Zayn, who had appeared at this desk in a huff, shuffling dramatically through some papers.

 

“Oh, hey, bro. How's it going?” Zayn said distractedly.

 

He hadn't driven Louis to the Hive in almost two weeks, leaving Louis to catch the bus every day. They'd barely seen each other at all, as Zayn had been working on his laptop out of Eugene's office in the back of the labyrinth. Assuming, that was, that only work was going on in there, Louis thought.

 

Practically overnight, all of their social media had been overtaken with snaps of the two of them together: at dinners, eating ice cream on the beach, even walking Eugene's dogs in the park. Louis would never dream of denying that, aesthetically at least, they were the literal most gorgeous couple on the planet. But that did nothing to abate his qualms at the speed at which that “coupling” had come to be. Not only were they inseparable socially, but Eugene seemed to have Zayn concocting elaborate animations for at least one of his uncountable video series'. He hadn't been able to contribute to anyone else's projects since their first date.

 

“Oh, are you taking your desk back?”

 

It was Harry, materializing behind them and watching Zayn tentatively. He gave Louis a quick squeeze on the shoulder. “Morning.”

 

Louis beamed, forgetting his Eugene suspicions instantly. “Morning.”

 

Since Zayn had disappeared into the recesses of the building in his new Eugene-centered reality, Harry had taken to sitting in Zayn's desk, where he and Louis could work together on the editing and arrangement of new _Unexplained_ episodes.

 

Nobody had noticed their failure to keep the cameras running overnight, or to catch any apparitions, on the _Princess Ann;_ or if they had noticed, they hadn't cared.

 

After Hawaii _,_ Cheryl had insisted they hit a few spots around town so that they could churn out a bunch of new content faster. Going through all the footage side-by-side, they'd managed to establish a new tone and aesthetic for the series, not to mention upping the humor with tighter edits to enhance the comic timing of it all. They were set to post the eighth episode that day, and each of the preceding ones had been more popular than the last. _The Unexplained_ was totally viral around the Internet and had even been mentioned on one of the late night talk shows. Cheryl's “match made in heaven” had panned out, to say the least.

 

“Oh, no, bro, it's all yours,” said Zayn, noticing Harry. “I just needed to find these sketches, and I found them.” He waved a notebook at them and started to move past Harry. “Oh, hey. You guys. Eugene told me I should invite you out for drinks with us tonight. I feel like we haven't caught up in ages, man,” he said, finally catching Louis' eyes.

 

Louis frowned. “That's probably because we haven't.”

 

Zayn shrugged and moved further down the aisle. “Yeah, sorry about that. I'm doing this huge project with Eugene, you know. It's been keeping me pretty busy. But can I count on you two for later? Seven at The Anchor?” He shot a finger gun at them, a habit he had undoubtedly picked up from Eugene, and was gone.

 

That night at the bar, Eugene was unrecognizable at first, giving Harry and Louis each a big hug before they sat down at the table, congratulating them warmly on the latest episode of _The Unexplained_.

 

“You guys are really taking off! I better look over my shoulder!” he laughed, sitting down next to Zayn and putting his arm around him. But it was the kind, Louis noticed, where the neck is wedged so deep into the crevice of the armpit that it's virtually a choke-hold.

 

Louis and Harry exchanged a skeptical glance but shrugged it off.

 

“Yeah, we're coming for your crown,” smiled Harry. “Keep an eye out.”

 

“Oh, for sure, for sure. Everyone's just been so impressed with you two lately, we had to get you out with us on a double-date.”

 

Their heads immediately snapped to face each other and then quickly looked away, both blurting out simultaneous protests.

 

“Hah, you've got your facts wrong, mate--” Louis began, while Harry went with, “Oh, no, not a date, we're not dating-”

 

Eugene held up both hands, releasing Zayn from his headlock. “Okay, okay, my bad! It's not a date!” But he followed this concession closely with a wink.

 

“Honey, go get us some drinks, will you?.” He barely glanced at Zayn when he said it, and there was an undeniable tone of impatience there that made Louis squirm.

 

It was a feeling that only got worse as the night proceeded. Eugene launched into a barrage of unsolicited advice on making successful videos, commentary on _The Unexplained,_ and even fashion suggestions. Zayn could barely get a word in edgewise: whenever he tried to comment, Eugene would sweep in and speak for him.

 

Harry and Louis, with not much chance to speak either, found themselves flying through drink after drink, their postures hunching with unease more and more until they were leaning their heads in their hands, only half paying attention to Eugene through narrowed eyes.

 

Finally, Louis couldn't take anymore. He poured the rest of his beer down his throat in one and slammed the empty glass on the table with more force than he'd intended. He nudged Harry's thigh with his own under the table and nodded subtly toward the door. Harry nodded his assent.

 

“Eugene!” Louis barked, interrupting a tirade on how cropped pants were falling out of fashion but shouldn't be. “This has been great, mate, cheers. But we're going to give you two some couple time now, all right?”

 

Harry was already on his feet, and quickly added, “Yeah, cheers for the invite. Good, good stuff.” He gave Zayn a serious look. “I really hope you _enjoy_ the rest of your night.”

 

Louis saw Zayn's eyes darting between them questioningly. But he didn't have it in him to stay another second, and he knew that any veiled warnings he might conjure up would fall on deaf ears anyway. Before Eugene could protest, Harry made a beeline for the door with Louis fast on his heels.

 

They stumbled out into the hot night air, the sudden change of environment causing the thick alcohol buzz to hit them anew.  
  
Harry let out a nervous laugh. “What the hell was that?”

 

Louis shook his head as they started walking in a random direction. “It was disgusting, is what it was.”

 

“Revolting.”

 

They walked for a few minutes in silence, processing the evening.

 

“So what are you going to do?” Harry asked finally.

 

Louis had no idea. “Zayn's been in love with Eugene since he first laid eyes on him. I can't imagine anything I could do that would tear him away now.”

 

“In love? Or obsessed?”

 

Louis chuckled. “I don't know if they're mutually exclusive.”

 

They were close to a bus stop and began to slow their pace and aim for it. “He's your best friend. Right?” Harry said seriously.

 

Louis nodded grimly. “I'll figure something out.”

 

They both looked blankly at the bus timetables for a while.

 

“Hey, you want to keep walking?” Harry asked suddenly.

 

It sounded like exactly what Louis wanted to do. “Sure, mate. Walk you home?”

 

*

 

“Oh my god!” squealed Louis suddenly with uncharacteristic glee, as they turned onto Harry's road.

 

“What?”

 

Louis stopped on the corner and Harry stopped with him.

 

“This is like, exactly...” Louis spun around and looked over at the 101 roaring dimly just behind them. “This is exactly the place where--” He interrupted himself. “No, never mind.”

 

Harry followed Louis' eyes to the highway. “Exactly the place where what? Come on!”

 

Louis looked sheepish. “No, it's too cheesy.”

 

“Tell me!”

 

Louis sighed. “Right there,” he pointed to the highway. “When you're driving north. On the way to work, like, every day since I came here—I can't, it's too dumb!”

 

Harry grabbed his partner's shoulders. “Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

 

Louis looked up at him half-smiling. “It's the best place where you can catch a really clear glimpse of the Hollywood sign from the highway. I do it every day, it's sort of like my way to...remind myself to be grateful that I'm here. That I have this chance.”

 

Harry's eyes were sparkling as he looked over Louis' head at the 101. “Right there?”

 

“Right there.”

 

Harry grinned and turned to continue walking down his street.

 

“What? Are you laughing at me?”

 

Harry stopped. “No way. Hell, no.” He turned to Louis again. “I just think it's...it's really cool that you do that. And that it's exactly...” He felt his cheeks go even warmer than the alcohol and the walk had already made them. “That it's right where I live.”

 

Louis looked at the ground, beaming, and moved to keep walking. “Yeah. Me too.”

 

Soon they were standing in front of Harry's unimpressive apartment building, gazing up at it, both unsure what to do next.

 

“Which one's yours?” asked Louis.

 

Harry pointed up to the darkened windows of the top floor, on the right. “There.”

 

They stared at it pointlessly.

 

“I guess Niall's not home,” Louis remarked.

 

“I think he's out with Ellie.” He was almost always out with Ellie.

 

“Nobody home but ghost girl,” Louis laughed softly.

 

Harry shrugged, feeling embarrassed to have ever confessed that story to Louis. Although his embarrassment was fairly misplaced, he supposed, considering the line of work they were in together and all the bumps in the night that had sent him shrieking out of rooms right in front of Louis' eyes.

 

“Naw. I haven't seen her again, actually. It's just the booming. That still happens every night. But I'm used to it by now.”

 

Louis turned and cocked an eyebrow at Harry. “Is that still happening? And you never figured out where it was coming from?”

 

Harry shook his head. “Nope.”

 

They stared at the building some more.

 

“Hey,” said Louis finally. “Maybe I could help you figure it out.”

 

Harry felt his face light up. “Yeah! Maybe you could!”

 

In a moment, they were rushing up the stairs and sweeping into Harry's room, Louis settling in the desk chair while Harry plopped down on the foot of the bed.

 

“Is that where she was standing?” Louis asked, gesturing to the spot next to Harry.

 

“Yes. Now be quiet and try to hear it,” Harry demanded.

 

They sat in silence staring at each other for a few minutes. Louis broke first.

 

“I don't hear anything. Do you? Because if you do, there might be a deeper issue here that needs addressing.”

 

Harry laughed. “No, I wasn't hearing it. You know, it only happens when the lights are out, so...” he shrugged.

 

Louis reached up and snapped off the light.

 

They tried again, longer this time, but nothing happened. Louis raised his eyebrows at Harry. “You said it happens every single night.”

 

Harry sighed. “I swear to God it does. But it's only ever when I'm lying in bed, about to fall asleep. And then when I used to jump up and try to hunt it down, it would always stop right after.”

 

Louis smiled. “Then I guess we better lie down and try to fall asleep.”

 

Harry felt a little butterfly flapping in his stomach as Louis joined him on the bed and they lay down side by side, staring at the ceiling.

 

Louis looked at him. “Close your eyes.”

 

So he did.

 

Minutes passed, listening to each other breathing in and out, in and out. It was so soothing that Harry actually started to drift off.

 

And then suddenly it happened. _Boom, boom, boom._ His eyes snapped open but he didn't say a thing, not wanting to scare it off or make Louis miss it.

 

 _Boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom boom._ It continued as Harry waited. He prayed for a sign from Louis that he was even still awake.

 

_Boom, boom, boom._

 

“Psst,” Louis finally whispered. “Are you awake?”

 

Harry felt his heart leap.“Yes, are you?”

 

Louis grabbed Harry's hand. “I hear it. Don't you?”

 

In that instant, at those words, Harry felt the entire weight of the world suddenly lift off his shoulders. He clutched Louis' hand back and rolled over to face him.

 

“You do? You really hear it?”

 

Louis rolled over, too. “Clear as a bell,” he whispered. “Boom, boom, boom.”

 

Harry felt like he was floating. Neither one of them moved a muscle to hunt down the source of the boom, instead continuing to look at each other in silence. Silence, that was, except for the boom.

 

Finally, Harry opened his mouth to suggest it. “Should we go--”

 

“Ssh,” whispered Louis. And in one quick movement he leaned over, bridging the small gap between them, and placed his lips on Harry's.

 

Harry felt himself melting into Louis, kissing him back eagerly, tenderly, and something in between.

They kissed and kissed, as the booming faded into silence. They kissed as though the Earth had stopped moving and time itself had frozen to honor them.

 

They kissed until the door slammed open, the light flashed on, and Niall shouted “Harry!” in an agonized wail.

 

They both shot up and looked at the blond, who was standing in the doorway staring blankly back at them, blood dripping down his face.

 

*

 

Louis banged on the door of Zayn's apartment again, louder this time, his fist starting to throb. “Open up, Zayn!” he shouted through the wood.

 

Finally the door cracked open and Zayn peered out meekly. “What.”

 

Louis rolled his eyes and shoved past him into the apartment, marching into the living room before spinning back to face his friend.

 

“You know exactly what! What the hell, mate! What is going on?!”

 

Zayn sighed and shut the door, following Louis into the living room.

 

“It was just a bar fight. It's not that big of a deal. Guys do it all the time.”

 

“No, they don't! And certainly not to my new—my new co-host's roommate!” He took a step closer to Zayn. “What. In the fuck. Have you gotten yourself into.” He tapped firmly on Zayn's chest with his finger to accentuate his own words.

 

Harry had taken off to the hospital with Niall—in a whirlwind of blood, panic, and rushed explanations that were impossible to follow—and Ellie, who had been waiting in the car downstairs. All Louis had been able to gather was that Niall and Ellie had shown up at The Anchor shortly after he and Harry had left, and weren't there long before Eugene had  apparently found it necessary to beat Niall about the face.

 

Zayn slumped down onto the sofa and hugged his knees to his chest, pulling himself into a little ball.

 

“I don't know.”

 

Louis softened. “I mean, Niall is literally the most chill guy I've ever met. I'm struggling to come up with an explanation for how this could have happened.” He perched lightly on the arm of the sofa. “So enlighten me.”

 

Zayn squirmed, eyes looking straight ahead at nothing. “I guess Niall said something about me or whatever.”

 

Louis raised his eyebrows. “Niall talked shit about you? Eugene was defending you?” It sounded even more implausible when elaborated.

 

“No, he...he said something about me and Eugene. That he didn't like our... _dynamic_.”

 

Louis felt a swell of pride for the little blond. “And Eugene lost his shit.”

 

“I mean, not all of his shit. It was just one punch.”

 

Louis let out a sharp bark of sardonic laughter. “Well it must have been one hell of a punch from the looks of Niall. I've never seen so much blood.”

 

Zayn grimaced. “Yeah, it's...Eugene always wears those rings, you know.”

 

Louis slapped his palm to his cheek. Fucking ouch. Poor Niall, he thought. What a martyr.

 

He slid all the way onto the sofa and turned toward his friend. “You know Niall was right, don't you? Please tell me you know that?”

 

Zayn finally looked at him. “Yeah. I know.”

 

“And if...and if he would do that to Niall for some offhand comment...” Louis didn't want to finish the thought.

 

“Yeah. I know.”

 

Louis scooted closer and took Zayn's hands in his. “Will you promise me right now that this thing is over? Please?”

 

Zayn nodded quickly. “It is. But I mean...it's not, though.”

 

“What do you mean, it's not?”

 

Zayn pulled his hands away from Louis' and shoved them back into his lap. “There's something else that...happened. The other day. I've been wanting to say something to someone but I just...I don't know.”

 

“What happened? Did he hurt you?”

 

“No, no, not that,” Zayn said hurriedly. “But I've been wondering if it's possible that he...hurt someone else.”

 

Louis felt a wave of nausea wash over him. “What. Happened.”

 

“Well, the other day. Keith was in the office with us, just kind of moping. Like always.” Zayn took a deep breath. “But then he started talking about Jesy, and how it's all his fault. How he should have walked her those two stupid blocks home.” Zayn sniffed, tears brimming in his eyes. “How every night he sees her walking away from him, her 'dumb orange pom-pom beanie bobbing along' as she gets further and further away from him. How he shouldn't have let her go.”

 

“Okay. And...?”

 

Zayn took a shuddering breath, tears now dripping down his cheeks. “And I didn't think a whole lot of it, other than, that poor fucking guy, you know. Until last night.”

 

“What happened last night.”

 

Zayn cleared his throat. “Eugene and I were, uhm... _making out_ in the backseat of his car, and I was underneath him--”

 

Louis put his hands over his ears. “Fast-forward.”

 

“Well it's cramped back there, not a lot of places to put your limbs, and...I don't know, my hand got kind of shoved under the front seat and I felt...” He paused to wipe at his eyes, then grabbed his phone from the table next to him and swiped into it. “I felt this.”

 

Louis looked down at the photo on the screen and felt his stomach drop away into oblivion.

 

It was Jesy's orange beanie, sticking out from under the front passenger seat of Eugene's car.

 

“Fucking hell. How did you...”

 

Zayn quickly tossed the phone away from himself. “He didn't see me find it. I'm pretty sure he didn't. I went back and got this photo later when he was out shooting vlog footage in the park.”

 

Louis felt like he was going to puke. “Maybe...maybe Keith is misremembering what Jesy looked like when she was walking away. You know? Maybe she lost her hat in the car on the way to the restaurant. I mean, Eugene gave them a ride.”

 

Zayn rested his chin on his knees. “Maybe. But I feel like that's something Keith would remember. You know? Given the circumstances...”

 

Louis felt like that was something Keith would remember, too.

 

Zayn continued. “But you know, it is possible he misremembered. And so, who's to say? And how would Jesy have ended up _back_ in Eugene's car again, anyway? I mean, I guess there could be a million reasons but...that would mean Eugene is lying. And I just...I don't know.”

 

Louis scooted forward and pulled his phone out of his back pocket. “You have to tell someone.”

 

“I just told you!” Zayn protested.

 

“You have to tell the police.” Louis scrolled through his contacts list, not sure what he was looking for. 911? That wasn't right.

 

“No! I can't. We don't know enough.”  
  


“What else is there to know?” Suddenly his eyes landed on the best immediate solution.

 

Within half an hour, Louis was carrying three steaming mugs of tea into the living room for Zayn, himself, and LAPD detective and GraFitiZ number one fan Liam Payne.

 

*

 

“Why so glum, chum?” Ellie leaned down, putting her head on Harry's shoulder and nuzzling into his neck.

 

He had been sitting at his desk staring at a blank monitor for, he wasn't sure how long. He couldn't really even remember what he had been doing before. Other than the same thing he had been doing all morning: working on a script for thirty seconds; checking his phone; closing his eyes to see either an image of his bloodied roommate's face, or of Louis' face pressed up against his own; checking his phone; repeat.

 

The interruption at Casa Niall Style had happened on a Friday night, and Harry hadn't heard from Louis the entire weekend. Now it was Monday, Louis wasn't at work, and Harry was back in his original desk wondering what in the hell had gone wrong. Besides the obvious.

 

He patted Ellie's head and pulled away, spinning to face her.

 

“You know, the usual. Global warming. Stranded polar bears.”

 

Ellie shook her head sadly as she arranged herself in Jesy's old chair. “Those poor guys never see it coming.”

 

“They just float off into the sunset, never to be heard from again.” Harry pretended to dab at his eyes.

 

“What's up? How's my boy?”

 

Ellie had dropped them at the hospital that night but then left to catch a red-eye to visit her brother in Seattle. Harry had kept his roommate company as the doctor sewed fourteen stitches over Niall's eye, muttering that he was lucky the hit hadn't been a few more millimeters to the right or he probably would have lost his vision. There was talk of pressing charges, but all Niall wanted, he'd said, was for it all to be over and to go home.

 

“He's doing okay. He was really shaken up that night, as you saw. But over the weekend he calmed down, and I think he was more proud of himself than anything. Like he took the hit to save Zayn from that monster.”

 

A monster who had whistled his way into the office that morning as if nothing had happened, Harry had noted.

 

Ellie smiled. “Yeah, he texted me something like that. He's a hell of a guy, isn't he?” She sighed dreamily. “I'm a lucky girl.”

 

Harry agreed wholeheartedly. “I can't help but feel like it's my fault, in a way. I know that's dumb, but Niall wouldn't even know Eugene if not for me.”

 

Ellie punched him softly in the arm. “You're right. It's dumb. Next topic.”

 

Harry chuckled. “Thanks. Will you come around and see him tonight?”

 

Ellie's eyes sparkled. “I was planning on it. Unless I would be... _interrupting_ anything.”

 

Harry groaned. “He told you.”

 

“Of course he told me, you dumb-dumb. So what the hell is going on with you two? Does it have anything to do with why you're so zombie-esque today?”

 

Harry sighed. “It's just...we kissed, okay, you know that, obviously. And then I don't hear from him all weekend? What's that about? Did it even mean anything to him? Should I even care? What is life?”

 

Ellie laughed. “Whoa, there. He was probably busy. Very possibly helping Zayn disentangle himself from a pretty messy situation, would be one good guess. Besides, did you text him at all the entire night you were at the hospital with Niall?”

 

“No.”

 

“Or at all after that?”

 

“...No.”

 

“So, see? He's probably staring at his phone wondering the same thing.”

 

Harry considered this. He could admit the possibility, but felt a little too bruised and delicate at that precise moment to do anything like give in and be the first to text Louis. He shrugged at Ellie.

 

Just then, his computer monitor flashed to life as a chat message from Cheryl came in.

 

 _See me_.

 

Minutes later, he was sitting across from her in her sleek, minimalist office, staring into her sharp face as she stared at her computer screen, ignoring him.

 

“This is it, kiddo. You guys are breaking into the big-time now. It's spin-off time,” she said blandly, not looking away from her screen.

 

“Sorry?”

 

“The proposal Louis sent in this morning is perfect. I'm in love, I'm in love. Do you have any cases lined up yet?”

 

Harry shook his head in bewilderment. “What cases are you talking about? What spin-off?”

 

Cheryl gave her head a quick shake and finally turned to look at him. “That's right, I forgot. He asked me to let you know if I liked the idea. And I do. So here's me letting you know. _The Unexplained_ is spinning off into a second series, this one focused on true crime. Actual unsolved murders. I wonder what ever might have inspired him.”

 

Harry stared at her blankly.

 

“And he's going to be the lead on this one, telling the stories to you. But he thought since he couldn't come in today that maybe you should pick out the first case and get started. All right? See you later.”

 

With that, she turned back to her monitor and immediately began typing furiously. Harry thought it almost looked like she was faking.

 

As he shuffled back through the labyrinth, he began to feel numb. Unexplained true crimes wasn't a bad idea. But the timing just felt wrong. Jesy's loss was still too raw. Too unexplained in and of itself. It also meant his vision for the show was being ripped away from him again. And why the hell hadn't Louis come to Harry with the idea first?

 

Dizzy, Harry leaned against the nearest wall, realizing in a distant part of his brain that he was standing just about on the spot where they had first met. He sank down slowly to the floor, put his head in his hands, and stared to cry.

 

Suddenly, heavy footsteps powered down the hall, rushing past him with a breeze of cool air. He looked up to see three LAPD officers just as they burst into the office that had recently been awarded to Keith for his newfound success as a Shot Boy.

 

There was a shout of surprise, followed by muffled, firm tones. A few moments later, the officers re-emerged, Keith among them, his hands cuffed behind his back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've enjoyed this story, please consider reblogging this Tumblr post! http://mooninherhair.tumblr.com/post/168749096729/the-unexplained-mooninherhair-one-direction  
> And feel free to say Hi to me over there. Thanks!!


	6. Episode 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has just moved to Los Angeles to work for HiveNews Media, and his dark mood from homesickness and his creepy new apartment inspire a brilliant idea for a new paranormal video series. Unfortunately, he finds himself partnered with the biggest ghost skeptic of them all. Will they be able to get along well enough to get the series off the ground? And what's going on with the other unexplained events that are beginning to surround their lives?
> 
> This story is inspired by the series Buzzfeed Unsolved, which pairs a believer and a skeptic to investigate hauntings and unsolved true crimes. It's really awesome, so check it out if you haven't yet. If you're a Buzzfeed fan, you might find some other familiar "faces" floating around this story, too. Thanks for reading!

Louis felt his eyes glazing over as he stared at the one-sentence email for the umpteenth time that afternoon. He kept trying to parse it in different ways that could make him feel better about it, but he always ended up with the same result.

 

 _Pick out the first “case” yourself_.

 

It was the quotation marks that really damned the whole exercise. He could maybe have seen it is as an invitation—albeit not the friendliest of invitations, but that could be excused by Harry being busy with something else—if it weren't for those stupid quotation marks. The quotation marks made it undeniable: Harry hated the idea.

 

An idea, Louis reminded himself, flipping to an email in his outbox and scanning through it with narrowed eyes, which he most certainly hadn't requested or expected Cheryl to instantly sign off on and delegate to Harry, although clearly she had done so on her own. He shouldn't have been surprised. A distinct lump was growing in his throat, and he was regretting more and more not going into work today.

 

The entire weekend, though, every time Louis had even begun to vaguely dance around the notion of maybe going home, even just to grab a toothbrush, Zayn had hit him with the most pathetic, pained, puppy-dog eyes, that he had abandoned the topic completely. Detective Liam Payne had ended up staying Friday night and most of Saturday, mercifully relieving Louis of a great share of the burden that comforting Zayn and talking him down had ended up being; but when Liam had left Saturday evening to feed his cats and never returned, Louis was back in the driver's seat again.

 

They had barely gotten off of the sofa for three days. Take-out containers littered the coffee table, the ones on Zayn's half merely picked over but barely ingested.

 

Louis understood that the shock of realizing the man you were sleeping with might be a violent psychopath was pretty brutal; he was feeling a certain degree of shock, himself. But considering the unrelenting pattern of arrogance and all-around dickishness that Eugene had displayed over the entire time they had known him made it at least a little bit challenging to understand why Zayn was finding it so hard to shake him off; or why, to be fair, he had genuinely wanted to date the guy in the first place. Louis could recall some vague psychological mumbo-jumbo about people with low self-esteem being attracted only to those who would be withholding or unattainable; but when he had tried to explain it, Zayn clearly wasn't ready to hear it.

 

He sighed and tapped over to another tab on his browser, where he had actually begun a cursory search for unsolved murder cases, during a brief respite from staring at Harry's email and trying to crack a code that wasn't actually there. When it came to unsolved murders, there was, unfortunately for the departed, no shortage of material. Louis had always struggled when it came to having too many choices.

 

As he scrolled through websites, his mind couldn't help but keep going back to Jesy. It had been thinking about her that had given him the idea for the spin-off series, but not with the intention of discussing her case or trying to find her killer. Simply, he thought to himself, what he really wanted was an excuse to think about something else. It also just made a lot of sense as a spin-off, looking at all the crime shows being pumped out on television. People couldn't get enough. He wondered why Harry was so opposed to the idea.

 

Add that, he thought, to the list of things he was wondering about Harry: Why hadn't he texted at all to update him on Niall's condition? Why had he not even said goodbye before flying down the stairs and into Ellie's car? Did he blame Louis, in some way, for what had happened? After all, Louis had known Eugene forever and still let the relationship with Zayn start and snowball into the disaster that it was. And it was Louis who had led them out the door of The Anchor that night after failing to do anything, say anything at all to Zayn or Eugene about their, as Niall had put it, “dynamic.”

 

Buried in this pile of wonderings, Louis had all but convinced himself that Harry definitely hated him, when a knock suddenly sounded on the front door. Zayn stirred from his slumber on his half of the sofa while Louis glanced at the clock: it was just around the time that a person working at the Hive might be getting off work and coming around. He felt his spirits preemptively lift as he crossed the living room to open the door.

 

But it was just Detective Liam Payne.

 

Zayn squirmed to sit up, running a hand vigorously through his hair and yanking a blanket over his disheveled clothes. Louis decided that was a sign of progress.

 

Quickly they were back in their familiar formation on the sofa, as Liam filled them in on the rest of his weekend. The good news was his cats were fine. The bad news was, he had mentioned the bobble hat story to one of the detectives on Jesy's case, and all he'd gotten back was that they would “look into it.”

 

“Cheers for taking care of that, mate,” said Louis, patting the detective on the back. “That's a real weight off our shoulders.”

 

Zayn didn't look as pleased. “But what does that mean, they'll 'look into it'? Shouldn't they be arresting him?”

 

Liam sighed. “Well I highly doubt they're going to jump to arrest him now, considering the circumstances.”

 

“Considering what circumstances?”

 

Liam raised his eyebrows. “Don't tell me you two haven't heard.”

 

Louis and Zayn shook their heads blankly.

 

“They arrested Keith this afternoon. He's their man, for now at least.”

 

Zayn's hand shot to his mouth. Louis felt like he had swallowed a brick.

 

“Why? Why? Why would they arrest Keith? Why would anyone, ever?” he stuttered.

 

Liam was shaking his head. “I don't know any of the details. But I can only assume it comes down to the same old story. The usual suspects. Suspect.”

 

Zayn leaned forward. “So they just think the killer is the person she was dating.”

 

Liam leaned back heavily. “It almost always is.”

 

*

 

A surge of garlic and oregano rushed into Harry's room, tickling his nostrils and rousing him from the half doze in which he had been languishing, lying in the middle of his floor and watching the sky grow dark out the window.

 

Niall had to be cooking. Once again, he thought, stomach growling, it took an external stimulus to remind him that he hadn't eaten in far too long. He found himself rolling to his feet and following his nose into the kitchen, where his roommate was just sitting down in front of a heaping plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

 

“Got any extra?” Harry asked, ruffling Niall's hair.

 

“Go for it, bro. I don't think I'll even be able to finish this much.”

 

Harry helped himself to a serving and joined Niall at the table. “I did notice there have been more leftovers around than usual, mate. Appetite not so great?”

 

Niall slurped down a mouthful of noodles before setting down his fork and leaning his head in his hand. “Now that you mention it. Maybe it's the pain meds.”

 

Harry worked at twisting some spaghetti into a neat bundle on his fork. “Maybe, maybe. It could also be, you know, a little dash of shock and a pinch of depression from being assaulted.”

 

Niall nodded slowly. “Or that.”

 

It had been a week since Punchgate. Niall's black eye was starting to fade around the edges from a deep purple to a yellowish green, and he had already had the stitches removed. A bag was sitting packed and ready to go by the front door: in the morning he and Ellie were taking off to the Caribbean for a week. Harry had already thanked her at work a million times for planning that one. God knew Niall could use a vacation.

 

For his part, Harry had felt like he himself could use a vacation pretty much every day since he'd moved to the godforsaken country. But in reality, he'd spent the entire week accomplishing exactly nothing at the Hive, other than filming a few cameos in some of the other series'. On the Random People Try Whatever Nasty Food Things series, for one, he'd had the honor he'd never wanted of tasting tuna eyeballs. They actually hadn't been that bad.

 

If the office din had perhaps been beginning to sound slightly more chipper the longer Jesy's memorial faded into the past, they were back now to a deep gloom in the wake of Keith's arrest: People made less eye contact. No exciting new projects were being launched. Almost nobody was going out for drinks after work anymore. And worst of all, although Louis had returned on Tuesday, he and Harry had yet to exchange a single word. The longer it had gone on, the more impossible it began to feel to even consider being the first one to break the silence.

 

“But what about you?” Niall was saying. “Why do I keep seeing you laying on the floor like a dramatic teenager? Why haven't you guys posted a new episode of _The Unexplained_ in like a million years? Is it my fault?”

 

Harry swallowed a bite of meatball thoughtfully. “Cheers, I do like being compared to a dramatic teenager. One simply has to stay young, especially in this town, am I right?”

 

Niall gave him a half smile.

 

“As for anything being your fault,” Harry went on, “you're ridiculous, shut up, eat your spaghetti, go get a tan on a tropical island. Please. Don't even think such a thing. Ever.”

 

Now Niall's smile was almost its normal size. “I did interrupt something pretty hot and heavy though, didn't I?”

 

Harry felt himself cringe at that characterization of what had been a moment so...transcendent.

 

“It doesn't matter. I...think it was probably for the best anyway. We haven't even spoken since then, so that shows you how much it meant.”

 

“But Harry.” Niall let out an exasperated sigh. “Where do I even begin to explain what an idiot you are.”

 

“I ask myself that every day.”

 

A rosy glow was flooding back to Niall's cheeks at this opportunity to lecture. “Well, ask yourself harder. Because you obviously are nowhere close to finding an answer.” Niall shoved back his chair and stood up, marching into the living room to grab his laptop and bringing it back to the table with him.

 

“Feast your eyes on this, you little doughnut.” He clicked a few times, waited a few seconds, clicked again, and then spun the laptop around to face Harry.

 

The Hive was open to an episode of _The Unexplained_ , frozen on an image of Harry and Louis. They were sitting side by side in front of the camera, as they did during the storytelling segments, but their necks were both turned uncomfortably so far inward that they were looking at each other dead on, hysterical smiles radiating across each of their faces.

 

“Do you not see this?” Niall tapped the top of the screen aggressively. “And this is just a random video. It took me half a second to find an example like this. Because they're _all_ like this, all the way through, from start to finish.” He pushed the laptop closer to Harry. “Wake up, kid. This is the real thing.”

 

Harry stared at the image for a few moments, that tiny little butterfly from a week ago creeping back into his midsection. He took several large bites of pasta, letting Niall bask in his performance for a while.

 

“I may be willing to admit that you make a powerful argument. You know, visually,” he gestured at the screen. “But how do you account for him not speaking to me for a week? And worse, for him going to Cheryl with a new idea for the show without even talking to me first?”

 

“Cheryl? Is that your, ahem, less-than-friendly boss lady?”

 

Harry nodded.

 

Niall shrugged dramatically. “Oh, hm, I don't know! Maybe she had something to do with it! She's only _the worst_ , from what you've told me! You know what, it doesn't even matter! Stop lying in your room _wondering_ what happened and just _talk to him about it_ and find out!”

 

With that, Niall popped the laptop shut and started inhaling his spaghetti like the good old days.

 

Harry felt himself smiling slightly as he followed suit, soon clearing his plate. He stood up and made to grab Niall's plate and bring them both to the sink.

 

“No, I'll get it, man,” Niall said, blocking Harry and taking both plates. “I haven't done anything productive all day, I wouldn't mind some dishes. Shit, I didn't even wake up until almost noon.”

 

Surprised, Harry sat back down. “Haven't you been going to work?”

 

Niall busied himself with squirting soap onto the dish sponge in a dainty pattern. “I haven't told anyone this yet, bro, but...I decided not to go back there.”

 

“Are you kidding?”

 

Niall began scrubbing at a plate. “No. The truth is, Harry, I haven't enjoyed teaching golf for a long time. Maybe ever. I always loved _playing_ it, but doing it for a living, with all these demanding clients, it just sucks the joy out of the game. And I've felt this way for a while, but, I don't know.” He sighed. “Maybe it's dumb, it wasn't exactly a near-death experience or anything, but what happened with Eugene was scary, and it just made me think...I shouldn't be wasting my time on anything I don't love.”

 

Harry felt a distinct mixture of love and sadness shooting through him. He realized at once that he hadn't made enough of an effort to get to know his own roommate.

 

“That's not dumb. I think it's great. I mean, getting slugged wasn't great, but I think it's pretty incredible that you're finding a silver lining from it. Can I ask—why didn't you quit sooner, if you were hating it so much?”

 

Niall wiped at one eye with the back of his hand. “It's my dad, I guess, more than anything. We golfed together all the time when I was growing up, it was like our thing, you know? But he got too busy, and I moved out, and then we just never played anymore. But when I told him I got this job, he was so happy. He was just so proud. And we started talking on the phone more often. He always wanted to hear about my job. It was like a way to bring us back around to how we used to be, you know?.” He turned off the water and rejoined Harry at the table. “So anyway. That's more or less why.”

 

Harry wasn't sure what to say, so he got up, threw his arms around Niall, and stayed like that for a long time. Niall didn't even fight him.

 

“You're a good son,” Harry finally murmured into Niall's shoulder.

 

“I know.”

 

“But you better keep paying your half of the rent.”

 

They both started laughing and didn't really stop for the rest of the night. A six pack of beer saw them through an impromptu jam session, as Niall broke out his guitar and played for Harry, purposefully, that was, for the first time; Harry joined in with harmony he didn't even know we was capable of.

 

By the time they finally said goodnight and Harry closed his bedroom door behind him, he barely even remembered why he had begun the night lying on the floor staring at the sky dramatically.

 

He took a deep breath and grabbed his phone, swiping into his text messages to type:

 

_Monday...feel like going to Mexico?_

 

Then he pressed _Send_ before he could change his mind, tossed the phone away, and crawled into bed.

 

*

 

“Morning.”

 

“G'morning.”

 

Harry had just sat down next to Louis at their LAX gate. They had arranged, via a sparse series of text messages over the weekend, to fly to Mexico City that day and get back into the swing of things with _The Unexplained_. Louis didn't know what variety of haunted establishment they had in store for them this time, but that was the farthest thing from his brain.

 

He looked down and shoved his bag full of cameras to the side to make room for Harry's legs. They gave each other a quick nod before leaning back in their seats and staring straight ahead for a while. Louis thought that even in the noisy airport, you could hear a pin drop.

 

Suddenly they both started talking at the same time.

 

“You know, I really did think your idea for the true crime thing was good--” began Harry.

 

“Cheryl wasn't supposed to just tell you to start planning a new show--” started Louis, before they both stopped and looked at each other, smiling tentatively.

 

“You go first,” said Harry.

 

“No, you.”

 

“Okay.” Harry took a breath. “I can only hope that a series of grave misunderstandings has lead us to the unfortunate point at which we find ourselves here today on this solemn morning.”

 

Louis couldn't help but crack up. He was able to stop himself quickly, but saw that Harry was grinning back at him, and breathed a sigh of relief.

 

“I also hope...that whole thing that you just said.” Louis wiggled in his chair to face Harry more fully.

 

Harry continued. “I have no idea how we got here, but I hate it, and for what it's worth, I want to try and explain myself. I--”

 

“You don't have to--”

 

“No, please, I want to. I love your idea about the true crime show. I think it's brilliant. I love that it's another side to the concept of the 'unexplained.' And more than anything, I love that you're going to have the chance to take the lead. Because you deserve it.”

 

Louis flushed. “I thought you hated it.”

 

“I'm not surprised you thought that, because I was a jackass. I was pissed that you went to Cheryl with it first, but since then, I've been kind of thinking that maybe that wasn't how it was supposed to go—”

 

Louis shot up straighter. “It wasn't! Goddamn Cheryl. I just sent her a quick email right when I thought of it, to see if she'd bite. I didn't want to get started planning something with you only for her to poo-poo it after we had our hopes up. When you told me to pick the case myself--”  
  


“I am so sorry.”

 

Louis held up his hand. “Don't be. Just—it's forgotten. It's over. Okay?”

 

Harry nodded. “Done.”

 

Louis' mind raced through the crowded jumble of things he should say, trying to isolate one thought. He finally landed on one. “Niall! What ever happened to Niall?”

 

“He's fine. Some stitches, but he's fine. And on a much-deserved vacation as we speak, hopefully sipping a mojito.”

 

The whole night was beginning to replay in Louis' head. Things he hadn't thought about in a while. Things he had purposefully tried not to think about.

 

“I just realized...I can't believe I haven't told you this yet. Oh, why haven't we talked, goddammit!” He slammed his fist into his thigh.

 

Harry leaned closer. “We're talking now,” he offered soothingly. “Just tell me.”

 

So Louis told the story of Keith's recurring memory, of Eugene's backseat, and of the ugly orange beanie that was maybe trying to say something for Jesy long after she was gone. He found himself shaking a little in the telling as it all came flooding back anew.

 

Harry was shaking, too. “And now Keith's in jail, and that bastard has been coming into work every day, still the king of the world.”

 

Suddenly, the boarding announcement came on, and they continued the conversation quietly as they got in line. They discussed the possibility that Keith had remembered wrong, as they worked their way onto the plane. They pondered the reasons Jesy might have ended up back in Eugene's car, as the flight whisked them south. They considered evidence that might have been uncovered to lead to Keith's arrest, as they landed in Mexico City and caught a taxi to their hotel. And when they had exhausted all the possibilities and themselves, they threw on bathing suits and went down to the pool for a swim, where just maybe for a moment they could wash it all away.

 

*

 

“Haunted _dolls_?” Louis stared at the island they were slowly approaching by boat. Tiny figures hung from the trees all along the shoreline. “Is this Chucky's birthplace?”

 

They were being rowed slowly across a lake on the edge of Mexico City by an eerily-silent tour guide to the site of the day's filming. Evening had already fallen and it would be completely dark soon.

 

They had spent a little too long splashing around in the pool and soaking in the hot tub. In the interest of time, their cameras were already rolling. They were going to cut the storytelling segment down to whatever anecdotes Harry could deliver in action. And anything the tour guide might think to contribute, if it turned out he was actually a living person after all, Harry thought, eyeing him suspiciously.

 

At a long, battered wooden dock, they pulled up and clambered out of the boat, trying to keep both themselves and the equipment they were juggling from falling into the water.

 

They waited for the tour guide to get out after them, but apparently the tour was over. He nodded his head at the island. “I wait here.”

 

“You're not coming?” Harry squeaked.

 

“It is not big. You find your way around. I don't like the spiders.”

 

“Spiders?”

 

“You see.”

 

Louis shrugged. “Spiders and haunted dolls, this sounds better than a Sandals resort. Why haven't I ever seen this place recommended on TripAdvisor when I'm planning my vacations?”

 

Harry laughed, stumbling after him through the thick undergrowth. They pushed through some trees and into a clearing where they stopped, breathless.

 

All around them, from higher into the trees than any person could reach, to all the way down to the ground, strings of dolls danced: stuffed animals, Barbies, ragdolls, porcelain dolls, and any other type of doll you could imagine, some missing eyes, most missing limbs, a few missing heads, and all of them grown barely recognizable from dirt and weather. Harry and Louis spun slowly, filming the dolls and each other.

 

“Well, this really takes the cake, mate. You have brought me to some pretty serious dumps, but this is it, right here. This is your shining moment. Soak it in.” Louis was doing that thing he did, what to Harry now was simply an on-camera character. It no longer bothered him in the slightest.

 

Harry wheezed with laughter. “You like it? Come on. This way,” he started leading Louis toward a small wooden cabin at the edge of the clearing: a cabin so old and abandoned that most of the front wall had crumbled away and there was no roof to speak of.

 

“This must have been where the owner lived. Antonio del Valle, who bought the island and moved here after his wife and young daughter passed away from tuberculosis. He lived here alone for the rest of his life until he drowned mysteriously in this very lake at the age of 72.”

 

“What?!” Louis feigned shock. “You mean he wasn't murdered by this _army of haunted dolls_?”

 

Harry grinned. “In fact, Antonio hung these dolls here in the hopes that the spirit of his daughter would want to play with them and come for a visit from the afterlife.” They stepped closer to the cabin.

 

“Bad choice, Antonio. What were you thinking, mate? You should have hung up an X-Box, not a bunch of Satan's literal minions.”

 

“Actually, multiple visitors to the island have reported seeing a little girl ghost, as well as, after his death, the ghost of Antonio himself.”

 

They were at the cabin now. “All right. Where do we find good old Anthony? I want to say hi. Are you in here?” Louis ducked under a low-hanging tree branch that was partially blocking the way in.

 

“Yeah, inside this cabin is the biggest hot spot of activity, so be on the lookout.”

 

“Oh, I will be on _full_ alert, captain.”

 

Harry made his way after Louis into the cabin. They were so far into the trees here that it was completely dark other than their camera lights. They slowly took in the contents of the cabin.

 

“Under the fireplace—here!” Spotting the near-collapsed fireplace, Harry crossed the room. “This is where he kept the very first doll, the one that is now believed to be the most haunted.”

 

Louis followed him. They both leaned in close to the tiny, disfigured doll, sitting at the edge of the fireplace.

 

“Mate,” Louis whispered. “Her hair is moving.”

 

Harry felt chills run down his spine. He saw it, too. Then he figured it out.

 

“Nope. That's an enormous spider!”

 

And it was. As big as a human hand, perched right on top of the doll.

 

“Okay, stay calm. Let's just back away from _this_ doll and see what else there is to see.”

 

They started shining their lights at the different parts of the cabin, at dolls after dolls scattered around the broken furniture and piles of dirt. It quickly became apparent that every surface their lights hit was moving.

 

“There. Are. Giant. Spiders. Everywhere,” said Louis through gritted teeth.

 

“Yep.” Harry felt a web brush against his face, clinging to his hair. “Yep, this whole place is a spider's nest. We are getting the hell out of here. Now.”

 

As they scrambled to get out of the cabin, the spiders and webs seemed to multiply all around them. The cabin seemed to consist of more spider than wood.

 

“Go, Harry, go!” shouted Louis.

 

They ducked out of the cabin and raced back into the clearing, struggling to brush real or imagined spiders off their bodies as best they could while balancing their cameras. Harry began to slow in the clearing, but Louis called after him.

 

“Nope! We're done here! To the boat, to the boat!”

 

They continued running through the trees. Harry tripped on a root but Louis caught him before he hit the ground, and they kept going.

 

“Did you Google this place before dragging me here?” Louis shouted.

 

“I read all the history!”

 

“Reviews! Always read the reviews!”

 

Finally they were piling back into the boat, switching the cameras off, and checking each other for spiders amid fits of laughter.

 

*

 

“No! Not tequila!” Harry protested.

 

Louis looked at his partner seriously, presenting the shot to Harry like it was made of gold. “We are in Mexico. In Mexico, we drink tequila,” he lectured.

 

Harry assented. And so they drank tequila, but it was only a few shots in the hotel bar before they grabbed a couple bottles of beer and made their way back to the balcony of their room, overlooking Mexico City. They sat in silence for a while, sipping and looking out at the incredible view.

 

“There was one thing,” Harry said finally, “that we didn't...iron out this morning.”

 

Louis' breath caught in his throat. “Yeah. I know.”

 

“Should we—should we talk about it?”

 

Louis swallowed a lump. “Well, before you say anything,” he began, setting his beer down and scooting closer to the edge of his chair. “I just wanted to tell you...I was really relieved to find out that we weren't going to spend the night on the island of haunted dolls.”

 

Harry let out a surprised gasp of laughter. “That is...not what I thought you were going to say.”

 

Louis shook his head. “No, hear me out. I didn't want to spend the night there, with spiders, and dolls, and _cameras_...”

 

Harry was blinking furiously.

 

“...because I wanted us to be somewhere nice when--”

 

With that, Harry propelled forward in his chair, grabbed Louis around the back of the neck, and pulled him into a deep kiss.

 

*

 

When the sun rose, Harry found that he had managed to sleep through the better part of yet another night. But this time, instead of being fully clothed and on top of a haunted duvet, they were under the sheets, completely naked, and tangled together so thoroughly that not even the jaws of life could have released them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've enjoyed this story, please consider reblogging this Tumblr post! http://mooninherhair.tumblr.com/post/168749096729/the-unexplained-mooninherhair-one-direction  
> And feel free to say Hi to me over there. Thanks!!


	7. Episode 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has just moved to Los Angeles to work for HiveNews Media, and his dark mood from homesickness and his creepy new apartment inspire a brilliant idea for a new paranormal video series. Unfortunately, he finds himself partnered with the biggest ghost skeptic of them all. Will they be able to get along well enough to get the series off the ground? And what's going on with the other unexplained events that are beginning to surround their lives?
> 
> This story is inspired by the series Buzzfeed Unsolved, which pairs a believer and a skeptic to investigate hauntings and unsolved true crimes. It's really awesome, so check it out if you haven't yet. If you're a Buzzfeed fan, you might find some other familiar "faces" floating around this story, too. Thanks for reading!

“I don't know what to tell you kid,” Patrick said, picking up Louis' empty pint glass and gesturing toward the tap for a refill.

 

Louis shook his head.

 

Patrick set the glass back down and went back to wiping the already-clean bar. “I mean, _I_ like them. I love this kind of old-school alternative sound. It's very Silverchair or something. It's like the shit I grew up on.”  


“Yes!” exclaimed Louis. “That's one of their biggest inspirations.”

 

Patrick nodded severely. “They're good, no doubt. But it's just not the sort of thing that pulls in a crowd these days. You gotta have something catchier. Something to hook 'em. And be maybe a little bit less...dark.”

 

Louis picked at the cardboard coaster under his glass, listening to The GraFitiZ song that was playing over the speakers of the empty bar, trying to hear it as if for the first time. He glanced at his camera sitting next to him on the bar, the strap dangling strategically over the front so as to hide the red “Record” light without blocking the lens, hoping it was picking up the conversation.

 

It was only a couple of days into his semi-forced vacation, and Louis had already gotten bored and restless.

 

On the first day, he'd tried to sleep late into the morning but kept waking up thinking he was late to catch a flight. The rest of the day he'd spent pacing around his apartment uselessly, occasionally stopping to make a cup of tea. It was as if he didn't know how life worked anymore without constant travel, filming, and, of course, Harry by his side.

 

On the second day, he'd missed being productive so much that he'd done the unthinkable: pulled out his camera and decided to start vlogging. Cheryl would be thrilled, he thought as an excuse. She loved when the Hive's biggest stars started vlog series'. And anyway, it would give him something to do. But, unable to come up with anything new that would be worthwhile filming, he'd fallen back on old habits, grabbing a stack of GraFitiZ CDs and heading out to the bars.

 

If you showed up before noon but not too much earlier, he had learned, you could catch bartenders when they were just opening up and there weren't any other customers to demand attention. Often for the opening shift, it was even the owners themselves that got the place going for the day. Louis had perfected the art of making casual chit-chat with them while sipping his beer, only to craftily steer the conversation around to “this band that he knows that would be just perfect to play here!” More often than not, since no one else was around, they would indulge him and throw the CD into the sound system to give it a listen. It had been ages, though, since anyone had taken the bait and considered booking them.

 

“On the contrary, mate,” Louis tried, “I would argue that these are fairly dark times here in America. This is exactly the kind of sound that is overdue to make a comeback. It's just the kind of outlet people need.”

 

Patrick smiled, recognizing the hustle. “Listen, you're not wrong about that. But give me a call if your guys come up with anything a little bit brighter, okay?” He fished a business card out of his wallet and handed it to Louis.

 

Just then Louis' phone lit up. Speak of the devil: it was Zayn, inviting him over to hear the new song he'd written. Louis thanked Patrick and headed out to catch a bus.

 

As he rode across town, he kept the camera rolling in his lap, pointed across the aisle filming nothing in particular. He didn't know how people like Eugene had the vanity to think their mundane tasks were worth recording for posterity. Or why millions of people tuned in to watch them, for that matter. He certainly couldn't bring himself to aim the camera at his face on public transportation and start talking to himself. Besides, there just didn't seem to be anything worth saying without Harry around to volley his banter.

 

He and Harry had filmed so many episodes of _The Unexplained_ over the last few weeks that they had had to recruit other staff members to start doing the editing. They had been to Ottawa, Miami, New York, Seattle, and a bunch of those random towns in the middle states that he couldn't really remember, going through a mix of paranormal as well as true crime stories. They had barely stepped foot inside the Hive offices at all the entire time.

 

“You're going to wear out your welcome,” Cheryl had finally declared, calling them into her office. “You have to leave them wanting more. Take a break.” With that, she had placed the series on temporary hiatus and insisted they both take some time off. He supposed it was a reward, as it were, for their hard work and success; but truthfully it felt more like a punishment. There was no two ways about it: he missed Harry already.

 

They had stopped even considering spending the nights in any of their haunted locations. Instead, hotels across three countries had been host to their new favorite activity, now a foregone conclusion on every trip they took. Louis kept up the sass while the cameras were on, taunting ghosts and demons and Harry himself like they were on a primary school playground, as they explored creepy haunted house after creepy haunted castle after creepy haunted train. But when each episode wrapped, Louis dropped his act, and they moved on to exploring each other instead.

 

Louis climbed down off the bus at Zayn's street and began walking, still deep in thoughts of Harry. They had spent so much time on the road together, inseparable, that they'd scarcely had a chance to consider how they would fit into each other's lives beyond work, if they even would at all. On the rare occasions that they'd been home, it had only been long enough to pop into the office and drop off footage, or to switch out the clothes in their bags, or to catch a quick night of sleep in their own beds. The sudden lack of Harry that this hiatus had slapped across Louis' life had him reeling. He'd never seen it coming.

 

Zayn, too, was taking a little time off work. Since Keith had been denied bail, and the police didn't seem to be making any moves about the orange beanie, Zayn had mustered up the courage to talk to Cheryl. He told her all the things that had happened with Eugene, and said he was no longer comfortable working at the Hive if Eugene stayed on. To the utter shock of literally everyone, Cheryl had seen reason. Or more likely, Louis suspected, she had seen dollar signs, envisioning the brand tanking fantastically if the police came sniffing around yet a second member of the Shot Boys, and the company's brightest star to boot. She had fired Eugene almost immediately and sent Zayn off on his own enforced hiatus. Maybe she wasn't the _absolute_ worst, they had decided.

 

Inside Zayn's apartment, Louis was pleasantly surprised to find not only his best friend, but also a couple of new ones: Niall, cross-legged on the floor, a jagged pink scar cutting through one eyebrow; and on the sofa, eyes crinkled to the max as he gazed at Zayn, LAPD Detective Liam Payne. Louis squeezed his way in and settled back to listen to the new mega-hit his best friend was about to perform.

 

It was a moody mid-tempo number, but atmospheric and powerful. Zayn's pure falsetto soared through lyrics undoubtedly inspired by recent events, but beautiful nonetheless. By the second time through the chorus, Louis caught Niall singing along softly, almost under his breath. Although he could barely make out the voice, Louis could tell it blended well with Zayn's. He had an idea.

 

When the song was over and the others started applauding and lavishing Zayn with praise, (this was mostly Liam,) Louis snuck into Zayn's room, grabbed one of his other guitars, and brought it back out to the living room, setting it on Niall's lap.

 

Niall looked up in surprise.

 

Louis chuckled. “A little bird told me you play.”

 

“Oh, no, I barely play at all, I--”

 

“Play, Niall, play! Play, Niall, play,” Louis chanted, the others joining in between their giggles.

 

Soon, Zayn was teaching Niall the new song. as Louis and Liam sat back and watched. They began to go through it together again and again, making changes and experimenting. Niall suggested they change the chorus from minor key to major. He sped up the tempo and added rich harmonies that made Zayn's melodies jump out. Before their eyes, the song had taken on a completely new life.

 

Suddenly, Louis remembered the camera by his side. He hit record and joined the musicians on the floor, documenting the transformation. He had the feeling that he was witnessing the start of something magic.

 

*

 

Harry sighed. “Okay, if you don't like that idea...how about sweat shops? I heard there are some right here in L.A. that are basically an open-secret. We could--”

 

“Harry,” Cheryl interrupted, her voice tinnier but no less brutal coming through his phone speaker. “I'm just going to stop you right there. First of all, you're supposed to be on vacation, not pitching me ideas. I have actual work to do. Second of all, if I wasn't a fan of your idea to expose a fur farm, do you really think I'm going to give you the green light on sweatshops?”

 

Harry's face was going red. “But I--”

 

“Stick with what you're good at, kid. Being afraid of your own shadow. Now go be on vacation.” With that, Cheryl clicked off the line.

 

Harry sighed and collapsed back onto his bed.

 

He had been bouncing off the walls for days, completely lost for what to do with himself now that the show was on hiatus. To make matters worse, he hadn't seen Louis in like a million years. It was starting to feel like everything between them had just been part of the job.

 

When he'd gotten the staff-wide email from Cheryl that morning, demanding the next hot idea to replace the canceled Shot Boys series, he'd felt a surge of excited motivation, a flame that Cheryl had now all too quickly stomped out. He wasn't necessarily surprised or even disappointed with Cheryl's reaction. This time, he was angry.

 

It was an anger, he supposed, that had been building for a while. He had struggled to pin it down, and the fun he was having with Louis had helped keep it at bay, but it was there not far under the surface. He had finally figured it out on their last day in the office, as he listened to a group of his coworkers chatter on about the hot new debate: Keith vs. Eugene, whodunnit?

 

Since Eugene had been let go, the rumors had been flying. Everybody new something, or thought they knew something, or wanted to know more. Everyone had a theory, and everyone was dying to know everyone else's.

 

But something important was being forgotten, Harry thought, and he couldn't take it anymore. All anybody cared about was who did it, and how, and why. Keith or Eugene or a random psycho, Keith or Eugene or a random psycho. Even Harry was guilty, if you thought about it. The true crime side of _The Unexplained_ was doing exactly the same thing. Nobody, anymore, talked about the one thing that really mattered.

 

Jesy.

 

The victim.

 

Harry looked down at the long list of ideas half-crumpled on his bed. Since he was already in the mindset, he suddenly had one more to add.

 

As the gears started turning, he sprang to life, throwing on clean clothes, brushing his teeth. Before he could stop to question his own spontaneity, he found himself at the airport, then on a plane to San Jose, then standing on the doorstep of Jesy's childhood home, looking into the broken face of her mother as she invited him inside.

 

He started to explain who he was, but they already knew. Although he had only worked with Jesy for a few days, she had raved about him to her parents and gushed about how excited she was to work on _The Unexplained._ Soon, Harry was on the couch listening to Jesy's mother and father as they told him story after story about her life and her childhood. All three of them swung back and forth between tears and laughter. There hadn't been a funeral, and Harry got the feeling that this was the first time they had gotten to do anything related to Jesy other than tear their hair out and weep. He wished like a burn across his heart that he had come here weeks ago.

 

Hours passed. Finally Harry started telling them how he had ended up in their home. He talked on and on. He said maybe more than he should have, and certainly more than he needed to; but they were smiling, and everything felt so warm and so right, that he just couldn't stop himself. He covered everything from his guilt at doing the true crime episodes of _The Unexplained,_ to his anger at Cheryl's rejections, to his childhood dreams to do real journalism that actually made a difference to people. And, god bless them, he thought, they listened to every word.

 

“And so I have this new idea. But I wanted to...get your blessing, or something. Or at least hear what you think about it before I do it. I mean, I'm not asking you to be a part of it. At least not now, or anytime soon. You could be, someday, if you decided you wanted--”

 

“Dear,” interrupted Mrs. O'Neil. “What is the idea?”

 

His idea, he explained, was to make a series that covered, exclusively and respectfully, the lives of victims. He would show where they had lived and worked, their passions, their art. He would interview their friends and family and talk only, ever, about their lives, not their deaths. For however long they had been alive, he would find a way to tell a story of a life that had deserved to go on. A story that would stand on its own as information, entertainment, inspiration, and remembrance, all at once.

 

When he was finished, everybody was crying again.

 

“I think it's just lovely,” said Mr. O'Neil. “You're right, you know. You can't turn on the TV without hearing about Ted Bundy, or such and such a killer. We know their faces, their names, their stories. But nobody--”

 

“Nobody gets to know the story of the people they stole away. Nobody even remembers their names,” Mrs. O'Neil finished.

 

Harry smiled sadly. “Exactly.”

 

It was getting late, and the O'Neils invited Harry to stay for dinner. He sat at the kitchen table watching as they cooked together, moving around each other in the small space like choreographed dancers. When they ate, they sat side-by-side instead of at opposite ends of the table, Mr. O'Neil occasionally resting his hand on top of his wife's.

 

“For what it's worth, which I know isn't much,” Harry said as he looked across at them, “I think Jesy was really lucky to have parents like you. You seem so strong together. So brave.”

 

The O'Neils clasped their hands together and turned to look at each other, smiling.

 

“Harry,” said Mrs. O'Neil, turning back to face him. “I can tell you better than anyone on this planet. All you have is the people that you love. In the end, nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, is more important than being with them.”

 

Mr. O'Neil squeezed her hand tighter, nodding. “Being with them, and also telling them every day how much they mean to you. Because you never know when it might be your last chance.”

 

As they all dabbed at a fresh round of tears, Harry found himself scooting back from the table quickly and standing up.

 

“Mr. O'Neil. Mrs. O'Neil. If you don't mind too much, I think there's a chance that I need to go and take.”

 

It was only a one-hour flight back to L.A, but it was the longest hour of Harry's life. His heart was racing so fast and his head was spinning so completely with what to say and how to say it, that he accidentally gave the cab driver his own address and didn't even notice until they were turning onto his street.

 

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he muttered, stumbling out of the cab.

 

His momentum had stalled out. As he began the four-story march up the stairs to his apartment, he didn't know if he should even follow through anymore. Maybe he would try again tomorrow.

 

Then, as he rounded the final landing before his floor, he ran smack into another person racing down in the opposite direction. They both stepped backwards and stared at each other.

 

“You're here,” said Louis, wide-eyed.

 

“ _You're_ here,” said Harry.

 

“Niall said you went to the airport. I thought you were...going away.”

 

Harry took in the pair of lovely blue eyes in front of him. He never wanted to see those eyes look so lost, so sad, so questioning, ever again.

 

“I went somewhere, but—it doesn't matter. I had to come back.” He stepped closer to Louis. “Had to.”

 

Louis moved an inch closer, too. “You had to?”

 

Harry put his hand on the small of Louis' back and pulled him the rest of the way in until they were flush together.

 

“Had to.”

 

They blinked at each other, smiles beginning to creep across their faces.

 

“Why'd'ya have to?”

 

Harry grinned.

 

“You know why.”

 

“Haven't the faintest. Tell me.”

 

Harry wrapped both arms around Louis' neck and leaned down to him, pressing their foreheads together.

 

“Because I love you,” he whispered. “You mean, old, non-ghost-believing bully.”

 

And they were kissing again, as if their lips had never been apart, as if it was the first time and the last time at once. They kissed with everything they had in them. They kissed and kissed until Niall banged the door open and yelled down the stairs “Get a room!” and they pulled apart, laughing.

 

Harry kicked Louis lightly in the shin. “Say it back. Bully.”

 

Louis took Harry's hand and started guiding him up the stairs. “Can't. Too big of a bully.”

 

A while later, as they lay wrapped in sheets and each other's arms in the dark of Harry's room, sweat evaporating from their foreheads as they began to drift off, Louis whispered.

 

“Want to know a secret?”

 

“Always,” replied Harry, stroking Louis' hair softly.

 

“I was _terrified_ in the Molly-demon house.”

 

“WHAT?!” Harry shouted, sitting up and staring down at Louis.

 

Louis burst out laughing, before yanking Harry back down to him and clamping his hand over Harry's mouth.

 

“And also, I love you,” he added. He pulled his hand away and replaced it with his mouth before Harry could say another word.

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

_Epilogue_

 

 

_Beep, beep, beep_.

 

“I'm coming! You see me!” Louis shouted, jogging down his front sidewalk to Ellie's waiting car and jumping in the passenger seat.

 

“What took you so long? I've been sitting out here all day.”

 

“You have not. Come on, they go on stage in like five minutes. Drive, woman.”

 

And drive she did, speeding across Los Angeles like a bat out of hell, slamming on the gas at every yellow light. It wasn't until they finally hit a red light and had to give up the fight that Louis noticed it: a diamond glittering up from Ellie's left hand as she drummed impatiently on the steering wheel.

 

“He did it?!”

 

Ellie winked at him. “Ssh. You saw nothing. He wants to announce it tonight after they play.”

 

“Ellie!” Louis felt himself tearing up. He grabbed her hand and gave it a firm squeeze. “You go forth and make an honest man out of that boy, darling.”

 

“Oh, I intend to,” Ellie laughed, removing her foot from the break and tearing off again as the light flipped to green.

 

*

 

Harry craned his neck backwards, scanning the room. They had already dimmed the lights, and New Graffiti was going to start any minute. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Looking good, super star,” Cheryl said, smiling down at him. There was something a bit warmer in her expression than he'd ever seen before.

 

“Oh, wow. Hi, Cheryl. I'm surprised you could...make it.”

 

When they had sent an invitation to her, it had been mostly as a joke, and at least a little bit to rub it in her face. They'd never expected her to actually show up.

 

Cheryl arranged herself on the chair behind him and leaned forward. “Are you kidding? Your boyfriend has been submitting formal reviews to me about this band for _years_. How could I stay away?”

 

Harry chuckled, eyes still sweeping the faces behind her. “So have you been...watching the show? Er, _shows_?”

 

Cheryl hesitated before she replied, “I have, Harry. And I think they're both incredible.”

 

She took a sharp breath. If Harry didn't know her better, he might think she was nervous.

 

“Actually, that's part of the reason I wanted to come here tonight. I wanted to tell you guys that there are no hard feelings. I don't blame you in the slightest for leaving the Hive, and I am truly, completely happy for your success. Especially _Say Their Names_. Harry, it's one of the most beautiful pieces of work I've ever seen. Jesy would be so proud of you.”

 

Harry felt the prickle of a tear in one of his eyes. “Well, thank you, Cheryl. I like to think she's been watching the show, somewhere out there." He shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I'm sure when Louis gets here he'll—”

 

Suddenly darkness filled the room and a booming voice broke through the din, cutting Harry off.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the long-awaited, much-anticipated, hottest event of the season! This is the world premiere album launch party extravaganza! Without further ado get ready to put your hands together and give a huge Hollywood welcome to the stars of the breakthrough web series _Up And Coming_ and the greatest new band since the Beatles....it's.......NEW GRAFFITI!”

 

In an instant, lights hit the stage and out marched Zayn, Niall, and the rest of the band, launching into one of their new songs.

 

Harry swelled with pride, jumping to his feet with the rest of the audience to dance. The band went through two upbeat numbers before switching to a ballad, at which point people held up their phone flashlights and started to sway.

 

Just then, Harry felt an arm wrap around his waist as the empty space beside him finally filled with a warm body in a crisp blue suit.

 

He let out a sigh of relief. “You're late.”

 

Louis beamed at him and leaned in for a kiss. “You mad?”

 

Harry kissed him again. “Furious.”

 

They turned to each other and slow-danced through the rest of the song.

 

*

 

When Zayn screamed “Thank you, Hollywood!” a multitude of red balloons dropped down from the ceiling and the lights came on again. Out of nowhere, LAPD Detective Liam Payne rushed onto the stage with an enormous bouquet of roses, lifted Zayn straight off his feet, and spun him around in circles.

 

From the side of the stage, Ellie exchanged a knowing look with Niall, and Louis laughed. He supposed their engagement announcement would have to wait.

 

He tucked his arm snugly into Harry's as they watched Zayn melt into Liam's arms and kiss him furiously.

 

Suddenly, Louis felt a tugging on the leg of his trousers. He looked down to find a little girl staring up at them with enormous green eyes, framed by two long braids. There was something familiar about her.

 

“Can I have a selfie with you?”

 

Louis' eyebrows shot up. “With me?”

 

She rolled her eyes. “Not you, dummy. You and Harry both. I watch your videos all the time.”

 

He and Harry looked at each other and shrugged. “All right, sure.”

 

They crouched down on either side of her and smiled cheesily as she held out her phone and snapped a series of photos.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“No problem, love,” said Louis, holding out his hand to her. “What's your name, sweetheart?”

 

The little girl looked at his hand but didn't take it.

 

“Molly,” she said, before spinning on her heels and disappearing into the crowd.

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

 

_Epilogue of the Epilogue_

 

 

And so, for our beloved heroes, everything was happily ever after.

 

 

 

But as for truth about Jesy's killer, the ghost at the foot of the bed, and the mysterious booming in Harry's room, well...

 

 

these things will remain....

 

 

 

 

_unexplained._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to check under your bed for demons.

**Author's Note:**

> Any resemblance to actual persons either living or dead is purely coincidental. Lol.
> 
> If you've enjoyed this story, please consider reblogging this Tumblr post! http://mooninherhair.tumblr.com/post/168749096729/the-unexplained-mooninherhair-one-direction  
> And feel free to say Hi to me over there. Thanks!!


End file.
